BT  15  . S53  1914 
Shebbeare,  Charles  John, 

1865- 

Religion  in  an  age  of  d.oubt 

l ^  T  *  ‘  " 


. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
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https://archive.org/details/religioninageofdOOsheb 


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%tt>rat\>  of  Ibtetortc  Ubeoloo\> 

EDITED  BY  THE  REV.  WM.  C.  PIERCY,  M.A. 

DEAN  AND  CHAPLAIN  OF  WHITELANDS  COLLEGE 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


CHARLES  J.  SHEBBEARE,  M.A. 


LIBRARY  OF  HISTORIC  THEOLOGY 

Edited  by  the  Rev.  Wm.  C.  PIERCY,  M.A. 

VOLUMES  NOW  READY. 

THE  PRESENT  RELATIONS  OF  SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION 
By  the  Rev.  Professor  T.  G.  Bonney,  D.Sc, 

ARCHAEOLOGY  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

By  Professor  Edouard  Naville,  D.C.L. 

MARRIAGE  IN  CHURCH  AND  STATE. 

By  the  Rev.  T.  A.  Lacey,  M.A.  (Warden  of  the  London  Diocesan  Penitentiary), 

THE  BUILDING  UP  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 

By  the  Rev.  Canon  R.  B.  Girdlestone,  M.A, 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  OTHER  FAITHS.  An  Essay  in  Comparative  Religion. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  St.  Clair  Tisdall,  D.D, 

THE  CHURCHES  IN  BRITAIN.  Vols,  1.  and  II, 

By  the  Rev.  Alfred  Plummer,  D.D.  (formerly  Master  of  University  College,  Durham). 
CHARACTER  AND  RELIGION. 

By  the  Rev.  the  Hon.  Edward  Lyttelton,  M.A,  (Head  Master  of  Eton  College), 
MISSIONARY  METHODS,  ST.  PAUL’S  OR  OURS  ? 

By  the  Rev.  Roland  Allen,  M.A.  (Author  of  “Missionary  Principles  "). 

THE  RULE  OF  FAITH  AND  HOPE. 

By  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Ottley,  D.D.  (Canon  of  Christ  Church,  and  Regius  Professor 
of  Pastoral  Theology  in  the  University  of  Oxford). 

THE  RULE  OF  LIFE  AND  LOVE. 

By  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Ottley,  D.D. 

THE  CREEDS  :  THEIR  HISTORY,  NATURE  AND  USE. 

By  the  Rev.  Harold  Smith,  M.A.  (Lecturer  at  the  London  College  of  Divinity), 
THE  CHRISTOLOGY  OF  ST.  PAUL  (Hulsean  Prize  Essay). 

By  the  Rev.  S.  Nowell  Rostron,  M.A.  (Late  Principal  of  St.John’s  Hall,  Durham). 
MYSTICISM  IN  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  K.  Fleming,  M.A.,  B.D. 

RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT. 

By  the  Rev.  C.  J.  Shebbeare,  M.A. 


The  following  works  are  in  Preparation : — 


THE  CATHOLIC  CONCEPTION  OF 
THE  CHURCH. 

By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Sparrow  Simpson,  D.D. 

RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION  i  ITS 
PAST,  PRESENT,  AND  FUTURE. 

By  the  Rev.  Prebendary  B.  Reynolds. 

COMMON  OBJECTIONS 
TO  CHRISTIANITY. 

By  the  Rev.  C.  L.  Drawbridge,  M.A. 

THE  CHURCH  OUTSIDE  THE  EMPIRE. 
By  the  Rev.  C.  R.  Davey  Biggs,  D.D. 

THE  NATURE  OF  FAITH  AND  THE 
CONDITIONS  OF  ITS  PROSPERITY. 

By  the  Rev.  P.  N.  Waggett,  M.A. 


EARLY  CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE. 

By  the  Rev,  Wm.  C.  Piercy,  M.A. 

AUTHORITY  AND  FREETHOUGHT 
IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

By  the  Rev.  F.  W.  Bussell,  D.D, 

GOD  AND  MAN,  ONE  CHRIST. 

By  the  Rev.  Charles  E,  Raven,  MA. 

GREEK  THOUGHT  AND 
CHRISTIAN  DOCTRINE. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  K.  Mozley,  M.A. 

THE  GREAT  SCHISM  BETWTEEN 
THE  EAST  AND  WEST. 

By  the  Rev.  F,  J.  Foakes- Jackson,  D.D. 

THE  PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL  IN 
OLD  TESTAMENT  HISTORY. 

By  the  Rev.  A.  Troelstra,  D.D. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  TEMPTATION. 

By  the  Yen,  E.  E.  Holmes,  M.A, 


Full  particulars  of  this  Library  may  be  obtained  from  the  Publisher 
NEW  YORK :  FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY, 


RELIGION  IN 


AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


BY  THE  REV. 

CHARLES  J.  SHEBBEARE,  M.A. 

RECTOR  OF  SWERFORD,  OXON 


NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


M  c  M  x  I  Y 


All  Rig}: is  Reserved. 


EDITOR’S  GENERAL  PREFACE 

IN  no  branch  of  human  knowledge  has  there  been  a  more 
lively  increase  of  the  spirit  of  research  during  the  past  few 
years  than  in  the  study  of  Theology. 

Many  points  of  doctrine  have  been  passing  afresh  through 
the  crucible  ;  “  re-statement  ”  is  a  popular  cry  and,  in  some 
directions,  a  real  requirement  of  the  age ;  the  additions  to 
our  actual  materials,  both  as  regards  ancient  manuscripts  and 
archaeological  discoveries,  have  never  before  been  so  great  as 
in  recent  years  ;  linguistic  knowledge  has  advanced  with  the 
fuller  possibilities  provided  by  the  constant  addition  of  more 
data  for  comparative  study;  cuneiform  inscriptions  have  been 
deciphered,  and  forgotten  peoples,  records,  and  even  tongues, 
revealed  anew  as  the  outcome  of  diligent,  skilful  and  devoted 
study. 

Scholars  have  specialized  to  so  great  an  extent  that  many  con¬ 
clusions  are  less  speculative  than  they  were,  while  many  more 
aids  are  thus  available  for  arriving  at  a  general  judgment ;  and, 
in  some  directions  at  least,  the  time  for  drawing  such  general 
conclusions,  and  so  making  practical  use  of  such  specialized 
research,  seems  to  have  come,  or  to  be  close  at  hand. 

Many  people,  therefore,  including  the  large  mass  of  the  parochial 
clergy  and  students,  desire  to  have  in  an  accessible  form  a  review 
of  the  results  of  this  flood  of  new  light  on  many  topics  that  are  of 
living  and  vital  interest  to  the  Faith ;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
“  practical  ”  questions— by  which  is  really  denoted  merely  the 
application  of  faith  to  life  and  to  the  needs  of  the  day— have 
certainly  lost  none  of  their  interest,  but  rather  loom  larger  than 
ever  if  the  Church  is  adequately  to  fulfil  her  Mission. 

It  thus  seems  an  appropriate  time  for  the  issue  of  a  new  series 
of  theological  works,  which  shall  aim  at  presenting  a  general 
survey  of  the  present  position  of  thought  and  knowledge  in 
various  branches  of  the  wide  field  which  is  included  in  the  study 
of  divinity. 

» • 

Vll 


EDITOR’S  GENERAL  PREFACE 


•  •  • 

vm 

The  Library  of  Historic  Theology  is  designed  to  supply  such 
a  series,  written  by  men  of  known  reputation  as  thinkers  and 
scholars,  teachers  and  divines,  who  are,  one  and  all,  firm  upholders 
of  the  Faith. 

It  will  not  deal  merely  with  doctrinal  subjects,  though  pro¬ 
minence  will  be  given  to  these ;  but  great  importance  will  be 
attached  also  to  history — the  sure  foundation  of  all  progressive 
knowledge — and  even  the  more  strictly  doctrinal  subjects  will 
be  largely  dealt  with  from  this  point  of  view,  a  point  of  view  the 
value  of  which  in  regard  to  the  “  practical  ”  subjects  is  too 
obvious  to  need  emphasis. 

It  would  be  clearly  outside  the  scope  of  this  series  to  deal  with 
individual  books  of  the  Bible  or  of  later  Christian  writings,  with 
the  lives  of  individuals,  or  with  merely  minor  (and  often  highly 
controversial)  points  of  Church  governance,  except  in  so  far  as 
these  come  into  the  general  review  of  the  situation.  This  de¬ 
tailed  study,  invaluable  as  it  is,  is  already  abundant  in  many 
series  of  commentaries,  texts,  biographies,  dictionaries  and  mono¬ 
graphs,  and  would  overload  far  too  heavily  such  a  series  as  the 
present. 

The  Editor  desires  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  that  the 
various  contributors  to  the  series  have  no  responsibility  whatso¬ 
ever  for  the  conclusions  or  particular  views  expressed  in  any 
volumes  other  than  their  own,  and  that  he  himself  has  not  felt 
that  it  comes  within  the  scope  of  an  editor’s  work,  in  a  series  of 
this  kind,  to  interfere  with  the  personal  views  of  the  writers.  He 
must,  therefore,  leave  to  them  their  full  responsibility  for  their 
own  conclusions. 

Shades  of  opinion  and  differences  of  judgment  must  exist,  if 
thought  is  not  to  be  at  a  standstill — petrified  into  an  unpro¬ 
ductive  fossil ;  but  while  neither  the  Editor  nor  all  their  readers 
can  be  expected  to  agree  with  every  point  of  view  in  the  details 
of  the  discussions  in  all  these  volumes,  he  is  convinced  that  the 
great  principles  which  he  behind  every  volume  are  such  as  must 
conduce  to  the  strengthening  of  the  Faith  and  to  the  glory  of 
God. 

That  this  may  be  so  is  the  one  desire  of  Editor  and  contributors 
alike. 

W.  C.  P. 

London. 


PREFACE 


THE  following  pages — of  which  the  substance  was 
delivered  in  the  form  of  lectures  to  the  Vacation 
Term  of  Biblical  Study  in  the  Divinity  School  at  Cam¬ 
bridge  in  1 91 1 — may  be  described  in  the  language  of 
modem  journalism  as  an  ‘  open  letter  to  the  teachers  of 
religion.’ 

Religious  teachers  of  all  grades — from  the  theological 
Professors  in  the  Universities  at  one  end  of  the  scale  to 
the  Sunday  School  Teachers  at  the  other — are  engaged, 
and  ought  surely  to  feel  that  they  are  engaged,  in  a  great 
co-operative  enterprise.  They  are  therefore  all  concerned 
in  some  measure  with  the  same  problems  :  and  difficult 
though  it  necessarily  is  for  any  writer  to  gain  the  ear  of 
an  audience  so  varied,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  the 
attempt  does  not  need  to  be  made. 

Voluntary  association  in  a  common  work  requires  a 
common  plan  of  campaign.  ‘  Image  the  whole’,  said  Mr. 
Browning,  ‘  then  execute  the  parts.’  But  this  is  a  day 
of  specialists  :  and  while  in  the  various  departments  of 
the  study  of  religion  there  is  appearing  a  great  quantity 
of  work  of  quite  extraordinary  brilliancy,  it  is  only  in 
a  few  circles  that  the  conception  of  theology  as  a  con¬ 
nected  scheme  of  knowledge  can  be  said  to  exist  at  all. 
Moreover  our  theologians  have  abandoned  the  habit, 
which  marked  the  theology  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  asking 


X  PREFACE 

clear  and  definite  questions  and  formulating  a  definite 
answer. 

In  one  sense  the  work  of  the  Christian  teacher  is  in 
every  age  the  same.  He  must  interpret,  in  relation  to 
the  duties  and  prevalent  conceptions  of  his  own  time, 
the  unchanging  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  sometimes 
said  that  the  main  difficulties  of  Christian  work  in  the 
present  generation  are  not  theological  or  philosophical 
but  moral.  'To  be  a  real  Christian  to-day ’  says  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford,  ‘  involves  a  great  deal  of  trouble  about 
matters  which  are  called  social/  If  justice  is  one  of  the 
weightier  matters  of  the  law,  and  if  the  present  condemna¬ 
tion  of  those  who  do  the  unpleasantest  part  of  the  world’s 
work  to  insufficient  and  precarious  payment  is  contrary 
to  justice,  then  the  truth  of  the  Bishop’s  words  must  be 
admitted.  The  Church  has  the  duty  of  ‘  binding  and 
loosing  ’ ;  and  it  cannot  discharge  this  duty  by  merely 
criticizing  and  rejecting  in  turn  the  various  proposals 
for  social  remedy. 

But  if  it  is  true  that  to  be  a  Christian  involves  '  trouble 
about  matters  which  are  called  social  ’  it  is  none  the  less 
true  that  to  be  a  Christian  teacher  involves  trouble  about 
matters  which  are  called  intellectual.  Till  Christianity 
has  full  possession  of  our  minds  it  will  never  have  com¬ 
plete  influence  upon  our  conduct.  And  the  intellectual 
problems  wilich  now  confront  us  are  exceptionally  diffi¬ 
cult. 

There  are  at  the  present  moment,  besides  those  schools 
of  thought  and  piety  with  which  the  majority  of  Anglicans 
are  most  familiar,  three  great  religious  movements  doing 
active  work  in  the  world,  yet  working  in  almost  complete 


PREFACE 


XI 


isolation  from  one  another.  There  is,  first,  English 
Evangelicalism ;  there  is,  secondly,  the  moral  and  doc¬ 
trinal  theology  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  there  is,  thirdly, 
that  far-reaching  tendency  in  the  religious  thought  of 
Germany  which  is  associated  with  the  name  of  Ritschl. 
This  theological  situation,  taken  as  a  whole,  presents  us 
with  a  momentous  question.  The  following  essay  is  an 
attempt  to  disentangle  this  question  from  others  which 
tend  to  obscure  its  importance.  Are  we,  in  a  word,  to 
accept  the  theological  revolution  which  ‘  Ritschlianism  ’ 
seeks  to  accomplish  ;  and  if  we  accept  it,  how  are  we  to 
set  out  upon  the  work  of  reconstruction  that  must  follow  ? 
If  this  question  is  once  fairly  faced,  however  it  may  be 
answered,  English  theology  can  hardly  remain  just  what 
it  is  now. 


The  special  purpose  of  the  present  volume  has  necessi¬ 
tated  an  arrangement  and  naming  of  Chapters  which 
may  in  itself  provoke  criticism.  *  What  can  be  the  value 
of  a  book  ’ — it  may  be  said-—'  which  deals  with  Evan¬ 
gelicalism  in  ten  pages,  Buddhism  and  Judaism  in  eight, 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  twenty  ?  If  the  writer 
who  proceeds  on  these  methods  is  suspected  of  mere 
indolent  "  book-making  ”,  he  has  only  himself  to  thank.’ 

It  is,  perhaps,  a  sufficient  answer  that  one  chief  aim 
of  this  volume  is  to  point  a  very  simple  moral — to  urge 
the  importance  for  every  Christian  teacher  of  a  compre¬ 
hensive  conception  of  his  subject. 

The  specialist  is,  unquestionably,  a  very  valuable  per¬ 
son.  To  trace  (let  us  say)  the  mental  development  of 
Kant  or  of  Ritschl — to  shew  minutely  the  changes  in 
their  view  between  one  edition  and  another — is  to  do  an 


PREFACE 


•  • 

Xll 

excellent  work.  But  it  is  more  important,  after  all,  to 
know  what  the  teaching  of  Kant  and  Ritschl  is  about,  and 
what  their  relation  is  to  our  own  problems.  Such  com¬ 
prehensive  knowledge  is  not  only  the  more  valuable  in 
itself :  it  is  also  the  one  condition  on  which  the  other 
kind  of  knowledge  can  attain  any  value  whatsoever. 
The  specialist,  therefore,  like  the  bee,  is  often  labouring 
rather  for  others  than  for  himself. 

It  is  well,  then,  that  we  should  ask  whether  the  present 
reaction  against  the  encyclopaedic  methods  of  the  past 
is  not  being  carried  too  far.  Are  we  not  missing,  in  theo¬ 
logy  as  in  other  pursuits,  a  great  opportunity  ?  Is  it 
right  that  theology  should  become  a  merely  antiquarian 
study  ?  May  it  not  be  that,  if  we  would  rely  less  on 
tradition  and  more  on  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  might  justly 
hope  to  produce — even  before  the  present  century  has 
run  its  course — a  theory  of  the  Universe  which  shall  be 
as  much  in  advance  of  that  of  Hegel,  as  Hegel  himself 
is  in  advance  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  ? 


But  while  these  latter  questions  are  for  the  future, 
the  two  already  mentioned  seem  to  press  for  immediate 
answer. 

First :  Has  our  theology — has  even  all  the  theology 
which  calls  itself  Liberal — really  learned  the  lesson  of 
Ritschl  ?  Have  we  sufficiently  recognized  that,  for  the 
individual,  the  Christian  life  is  in  large  measure  inde¬ 
pendent  of  Christian  doctrine  :  that  the  plain  man  who 
knows  but  little  theology,  and  perhaps  even  rejects  what 
he  knows,  may  yet,  by  moral  insight  and  by  the  experi¬ 
ence  of  sin  forgiven,  gain  such  a  knowledge  of  Christ 
as  shall  enable  him  to  take  his  place  as  an  active  member 


PREFACE 


xm 

of  Christ’s  Body- — a  partaker  through  Christ  of  the  Life 
of  God  ? 

Secondly  :  When  the  Ritschlian  lesson  is  once  com¬ 
pletely  learned,  will  it  not  then  be  needful  to  look  back  ? 
The  individual  Christian  can  live  without  theology : 
the  Church  at  large  can  never  dispense  with  it.  We  have 
not  yet,  however,  made  full  use  of  those  older  intellectual 
methods  which  Ritschlianism  has  tended  to  displace. 
We  have  not  yet  exhausted  the  religious  value  of  the 
old-fashioned  ‘ proofs ’  of  God’s  existence.  Perhaps, 
then,  when  we  have  sat  a  little  longer  at  the  feet  of 
Ritschl,1  we  shall  find  time  to  recur  to  the  older  methods 
with  the  added  insight  which  his  teaching  has  brought  us, 
and  so  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  doctrinal  system  which 
basing  itself  upon  a  knowledge  of  the  present  reality  of 
God’s  pardoning  Grace,  shall  at  the  same  time  furnish 
a  rational  ground  for  the  hope  of  future  Glory. 


I  wish  to  express  my  gratitude  to  my  old  friend  Mr. 
Clement  Webb  (Fellow  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford), 
and  to  my  neighbour  Mr.  Philip  Malleson  (Vicar  of  Great 
Tew),  for  many  most  useful  suggestions.  The  value 
of  what  I  have  learned  in  discussions  with  Mr.  Webb 
and  other  friends — and,  above  all,  from  the  teaching  and 
influence  of  my  Father — is  quite  beyond  my  power  to 
estimate. 

1  In  the  days  of  Lux  Mundi,  Ritschl  had,  in  England,  hardly 
yet  appeared  above  the  horizon.  For  the  writers  of  F 'oundations 
he  has  already  sunk  some  way  below  it.  The  noonday  of  his 
influence  upon  Anglican  Oxford  may,  conceivably,  have  syn¬ 
chronized  with  the  appearance  of  Contentio  Veritatis  :  but  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  prove  this  from  its  pages.  His  treatment 
of  Ritschl  is  the  chief  defect — perhaps  the  only  defect — of  Arch¬ 
deacon  Peile’s  admirable  Bampton  Lectures. 


SYLLABUS 

I  A  Practical  Problem.  II.  The  Rival  Methods. 

A  large — probably  an  increasing — number  of  our 
contemporaries  may  be  described  as  men  who  believe 
in  Duty  without  believing  in  God.  This  fact  forces 
the  Christian  preacher  to  consider  what  is  the  ultimate 
foundation  of  Christian  doctrine.  Is  its  true  basis  in 
personal  experience  or  in  supernatural  revelation  ?  Are 
the  facts  on  which  it  primarily  rests  events  occurring 
to-day,  or  events  which  occurred  long  ago  ? 

III  Theology  Past  and  Present. 

The  answer  to  these  questions  which  is  given  by  the 
Ritschlian  School  is  well-known.  Ritschl  teaches  (a) 
that  Christian  theology  must  base  itself  on  the  personal 
experience  of  ‘  justification  ’  through  Christ :  ( b )  that 
religious  knowledge  and  scientific  knowledge  cannot 
be  united  in  a  single  homogeneous  system.  We  shall 
find  that  he  is  right  in  the  first,  and  wrong  in  the  second, 
of  these  assertions.  We  shall  conclude  that  theology, 
while  needing  the  complete  revision  which  he  demands, 
cannot  be  limited  as  he  would  limit  it :  that  if  it  is  to 
make  good  its  claim  to  survive  in  the  modem  world  at 
all,  it  must — while  admitting  to  the  full  the  claims  of 
freedom  in  thought — seek  to  regain  its  old  position  as 
Queen  of  the  Sciences  :  that  the  construction  of  such 
a  philosophic  theology  is  the  best  method  of  giving 
intellectual  support  to  religion  in  an  age  of  doubt. 

IV  Morality.  V  Duty. 

How  far  will  the  method  which  relies  solely  on  moral 
and  spiritual  experience  carry  us  ?  First,  it  can  show 
— by  the  kind  of  arguments  used  by  Kant — the  absolute 
supremacy  of  Duty. 


xv 


XVI 


SYLLABUS 


VI  Guilt. 

From  the  knowledge  of  Duty  as  an  '  Imperative  ’ 
arises  the  recognition  of  universal  guilt — *  conviction 
of  sin  ’. 

VII  Deliverance  from  Guilt. 

All  the  higher  religions  seek  deliverance  from  Guilt  : 
but  this  deliverance  cannot  really  be  attained  either 
( a )  by  asceticism  and  gradual  self-purification,  as  at¬ 
tempted  in  Buddhism,  or  ( b )  by  *  good  works  ’  and  moral 
behaviour,  as  in  Pharisaic  Judaism  and  the  common 
morality  of  the  world.  Both  these  methods  are  found 
by  the  awakened  conscience  to  be  insufficient. 

VIII  Christianity. 

Christianity  seeks  deliverance  from  guilt  not  by 
*  works  ’  but  by  ‘  faith  ’  :  and  this  *  faith  ’  is  interpreted 
in  Christian  practice  as  an  act  of  will — a  wholesale  sur¬ 
render  of  the  will  to  God.  ‘  Justification  by  faith  ’  is 
not  to  be  interpreted  as  implying  *  justification  by  ortho¬ 
doxy’.  The  unique  success  of  the  distinctive  Christian 
method  can  be  learned  in  spiritual  experience. 

IX  Christ  ;  and  X  The  Historical  Jesus. 

The  successful  application  of  the  Christian  method 
is  found  in  practice  to  be  associated  invariably  -with 
submission  to  the  influence  of  Jesus  :  Whom  we  may 
truly  claim  as  its  Author. 

XI  Evangelicalism  ;  and  XII.  The  Keswick  School. 

Thus  the  method  which  relies  on  experience  can  estab¬ 
lish  the  supremacy  of  Christianity,  and  its  essential 
connexion  with  Christ.  But  an  assent  to  the  claims  of 
Christ  which  remains  merely  intellectual  is  not  yet  reli¬ 
gious.  Knowledge  of  Christianity  does  not  become 
religious  till  it  has  been  proved  by  personal  obedience. 
The  personal  adoption  of  Evangelical  methods  in  the 
inward  life — even  apart  from  the  acceptance  of  Christian 
dogma — will  reveal  to  us  spiritual  laws  ‘  valid  for  every 
rational  being.’ 

XIII  The  Ritschlian  Revolution.  XIV  Ritschlianism 

AND  CHRISTOLOGY 

The  systematic  statement  of  these  laws,  as  verified 
in  experience,  is  the  true  basis  of  Christian  theology. 
The  doctrines  of  Grace,  of  Adoption,  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 


SYLLABUS 


xvn 


of  the  absolute  supremacy  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  spiritual 
sphere,  and  of  His  absolute  claim  to  our  obedience,  can 
be  established  by  this  method  alone. 

XV  The  ‘  Argument  from  Design.’ 

But  the  Ritschlian  theology  has  its  limitations.  The 
mere  appeal  to  experience  cannot  establish  the  belief 
in  a  Future  Life,  the  traditional  Christian  doctrine  of 
special  Providence,  or  the  belief  in  the  ‘  personality  ' 
of  the  Creator.  We  must  therefore  reconsider  those 
‘  rationalistic  '  arguments — such  as  the  ‘  Argument  from 
Design  ' — upon  which  Ritschlianism  has  looked  coldly. 
The  Argument  from  Design,  revised  and  restated,  estab¬ 
lishes  an  optimistic  view  of  the  Universe  which  (for 
those  who  accept  the  Christian  standard  of  values ) 
involves  Theism. 

(1)  Defects  of  the  argument  as  it  stands.  (Just  as 

popular  materialism  explains  the  world  by  atoms, 
but  does  not  account  for  the  existence  of  the  atoms 
themselves,  so  popular  Theism  explains  the  world 
as  the  work  of  God,  but  leaves  the  existence  of  God 
unexplained  and  inexplicable.) 

(2)  Yet  the  argument  contains  a  correct  thought.  The 

beauty  and  harmony  in  the  forms  and  colours  of 
Nature  is  recognized  by  reason  as  an  f  end  in  itself  \ 
The  same  is  true  of  other  occurrences  in  the  world, 
e.g.  the  moral  and  intellectual  life  of  man.  In 
virtue  of  this  realization  of  ‘  ends  ’  approved  by 
reason  we  pronounce  the  world  a  ‘  rational  ’  whole. 
If  we  can  truly  say  *  It  is  no  accident  that  in  Nature 
rational  ends  are  realized  ’  we  are  affirming  a  be¬ 
lief  in  the  rationality  of  the  world  which — if  thought 
out — involves  a  general  Optimism. 

XVI  A  Future  Life. 

Such  an  Optimism  if  accepted  must  be  carried  out  to 
its  natural  conclusion.  For  those  who  accept  the  Chris¬ 
tian  belief  in  the  supreme  value  of  conscious  life,  and 
the  goodness  of  matter,  Optimism  involves  the  hope  of 
heaven  and  of  a  bodily  resurrection. 

But  the  thinking  out  of  such  a  thorough-going  Op¬ 
timism  as  this  entangles  us  in  difficulties  which  only  a 
philosophical  theology  can  hope  to  solve. 


SYLLABUS 


xvm 

XVII  The  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation. 

XVIII.  The  Task  of  the  Future.  XIX  The 

Parting  of  the  Ways. 

We  find  ourselves  led  by  the  seand  similar  considera¬ 
tions  to  the  following  principles  : — 

(a)  Religious  knowledge  must  begin  in  personal  moral 

judgments  and  spiritual  experience. 

( b )  The  ‘  rationalistic  1  arguments  which  lead  to  an 

optimistic  view  of  the  Universe  are  valid. 

Thus  our  religious  judgments  cannot  be  kept  apart 
from  our  view  of  the  world  in  general.  Theology 
must  develop  a  Theory  of  the  Universe. 

( c )  Such  a  constructive  task,  if  undertaken  systematic¬ 

ally,  will  involve  a  philosophical  criticism  and 
‘  reconstruction  ’  of  our  common  notion  of  the 
world. 

It  is  our  duty,  if  we  accept  these  principles,  to  apply 
them  boldly  to  such  theological  questions  as  those  of 
‘  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  the  ‘  atonement  *  mir¬ 
acles  ’,  the  ‘Sacraments’,  etc.,  etc. 

And  first  of  all  it  is  necessary  to  give  definite  answers 
to  certain  preliminary  questions.  What  is  to  be  our 
conception  of  Sin  ?  What  is  to  be  our  doctrine  of  For¬ 
giveness  ?  Again,  are  we  to  retain  the  time-honoured 
opposition  between  *  Reason  ’  and  ‘  Revelation  or 
should  the  modem  theologian  avow  as  his  aim  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  a  Christian  Rationalism  ? 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I 

A  Practical  Problem . i 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Rival  Methods . 9 

CHAPTER  III 


Theology  Present  and  Past 

• 

• 

•  *7 

Morality 

CHAPTER  IV 

•  *  •  •  • 

• 

• 

24 

Duty 

CHAPTER  V 

•  32 

Guilt 

CHAPTER  VI 

•  •  •  •  • 

• 

• 

•  37 

Deliverance 

CHAPTER  VII 

from  Guilt 

• 

• 

.  44 

Christianity 

CHAPTER  VIII 

•  •  •  •  • 

• 

• 

*  52 

Christ  . 

CHAPTER  IX 

•  •  •  •  • 

• 

• 

.  64 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Historical  Jesus  83 

xix 


CHAPTER  XI 


PAGE 


Evangelicalism  . 

CHAPTER  XII 
The  Keswick  School. 


103 

1x4 


CHAPTER  XIII 


The  Ritschlian  Revolution  . 

•  •  • 

121 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Ritschlianism  and  Christology 

•  •  • 

131 

CHAPTER  XV 

The  ‘  Argument  from  Design  ’ 

•  •  • 

141 

CHAPTER  XVI 

A  Future  Life  . 

•  •  • 

162 

CHAPTER  XVII 
The  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  the 

Incarnation  . 

178 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

The  Task  of  the  Future 

•  •  • 

198 

CHAPTER  XIX 
The  Parting  of  the  Ways  . 

•  *  • 

208 

Religion  in  an  Age  of  Doubt' 

CHAPTER  I 

A  PRACTICAL  PROBLEM 

ALL  the  religious  convictions  which  I  have  been 
able  to  retain/  said  a  thoughtful  Undergraduate 
recently,  ‘might  be  written  on  the  back  of  a  single 
Postage-stamp/ 

The  words  were  spoken  as  if  they  were  felt  to  be  the 
record  of  a  total  decay  of  faith.  And  such  indeed  they 
may  actually  have  been. 

Yet  it  would  surely  have  been  well  that  any  one  who 
heard  them  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  contrary  and 
more  hopeful  view  was  also  tenable.  This  meagre 
remnant  of  religious  conviction,  if  it  included — as  appeared 
to  be  the  case  a  sincere  belief  in  the  absolute  supremacy 
of  Duty,  may  well  have  been  of  far  more  worth  than  the 
speaker  himself  imagined. 

The  Gospel  speaks  of  faith  like  unto  a  grain  of  mus¬ 
tard  seed.  Such  faith,  it  is  implied,  has  immeasurable 
powers  of  further  development.  May  it  not  be  then 
that  just  as  the  seed  is  the  germ  of  the  completed  tree — 
so  a  genuine  faith  in  the  supreme  claims  of  Duty  is  the 
germ,  if  not  of  all  that  is  of  value,  at  any  rate  of  all  that 

1 


9 


2  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

is  in  the  strictest  sense  vital,  in  the  theology  of  Christen¬ 
dom  ? 

The  question  deserves,  at  least,  a  serious  answer. 
The  worthlessness  of  ‘  bare  morality  ’  has  been,  as  we 
know,  a  common  theme  with  preachers  :  and  if  our 
‘  morality  '  is  mere  self-interested  conformity  to  estab¬ 
lished  custom,  it  then  merits  a  great  part  of  what  has 
been  said  in  its  dispraise.  To  the  Christian,  who,  like 
Bunyan,  has  descended  into  the  depths  of  religious  con¬ 
flict,  the  doctrines  of  '  Mr.  Legality  of  the  town  of  Mor¬ 
ality  *  will  always  appear  to  be  not  merely  inadequate 
but  a  snare,  since  the  greatest  of  all  obstacles  to  repen¬ 
tance  is  self-satisfied  virtue.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
Duty  and  the  Moral  Law  are  taken,  not  in  this  superficial 
sense,  but  in  the  graver  significance  in  which  the  words 
are  used  by  Kant — if  they  involve  the  belief  in  a  per¬ 
petually  valid  ‘  Imperative/  a  command  which  we  cannot 
disobey  without  incurring  guilt  and  condemnation — 
then  the  sincere  recognition  of  what  Duty  means,  coupled 
with  the  perception  that  the  Law  which  it  implies  is  one 
to  which  man  never  fully  attains,  leads  directly  to  that 
*  Conviction  of  Sin  ’  which  it  is  the  characteristic  aim 
of  Christian  preaching  to  produce.  And  Conviction  of 
Sin  is  a  stepping-stone  to  further  knowledge.  Apart 
from  the  sense  of  personal  guilt,  the  Christian  conception 
of  Salvation  must  be  wholly  unintelligible  ;  but  when 
this  sense  of  guilt  exists  in  an  effective  form,  there 
is  always  a  hope  that  the  meaning  of  Salvation  as 
Christianity  conceives  it  will  become  plain  by  contrast. 

This  subject  has  an  importance  which  is  not  merely 
theoretical.  It  has  a  direct  bearing  on  the  work  of  the 


A  PRACTICAL  PROBLEM 


3 


preacher,  the  apologist,  and  the  theologian.  How,  for 
example,  is  the  Christian  preacher  to  address  himself  to 
those  who  believe  in  Duty  but  not  in  God  ?  How  is 
he  to  seek  to  convince  the  minds  of  the  '  Godless  good  ' 
— of  the  men  to  whom  Duty  and  Righteousness  mean 
much  and  God  means  little  or  nothing  ? 

It  is  with  special  reference  to  this  practical  problem  1 
that  the  following  pages  have  been  written.  Unbelief 
of  this  particular  type  is  already  common  in  all  classes 
of  society,  and  it  is  probably  on  the  increase.  In  many 
minds— too  serious  and  thoughtful  to  be  shaken  in  their 
moral  convictions — religious  doubt  is  still  the  natural 
product  of  physical  enlightenment.  And  the  more 
physical  knowledge  is  disseminated — as  it  must  be  and 
ought  to  be  disseminated — among  the  masses  of  our 
people,  the  greater  probably  will  be  the  growth,  at  least 
for  a  time,  of  materialistic  unbelief. 

In  some  quarters,  no  doubt,  it  is  the  fashion  to  speak 
as  if  materialistic  unbelief  belonged  to  a  byegone  genera¬ 
tion.  ‘  When/  said  an  elegant  critic,  ‘  I  read  a  book 
like  Haeckel’s  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  I  murmur  gently  to 
myself  the  words  “  a.d.  i860.”  ’  But  such  light¬ 
hearted  contempt — whether  real  or  affected — is  out  of 
place.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  merits  or  demerits 
of  this  particular  book — and  some  of  its  merits  were  great 
— the  creed  of  which  it  is  an  able  exposition  is  always  a 
formidable  foe  to  religion.  It  strikes  its  roots  so  deep  in 
what  Lotze  called  the  ‘  natural  theory  ’  2  of  reality,  that 

1  It  should  not  be  assumed  that  a  pastoral  aim  is  intrinsically 
inconsistent  with  intellectual  frankness.  Nor  is  it  inconceivable 
that  by  frankly  rationalistic  methods  we  may  reach  an  unex¬ 
pectedly  conservative  conclusion. 

2  Lotze,  Metaphysic ,  Eng.  Trans.,  vol.,  i.,  pp.  29,  35,  36. 


4 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


we  may  reasonably  expect  to  see  the  debate  with 
materialism  still  in  active  progress  when  many  of  the 
questions  which  seem  more  interesting  at  the  present 
moment  have  been  long  forgotten. 

At  any  rate  the  materialistic  view  is  widely  prevalent 
now  ;  and  it  has  great  influence  even  in  religious  circles. 
In  spite  of  the  philosophical  work  that  has  been  done — 
since  i860 — by  T.  H.  Green  and  others,  questions  are 
still  asked,  by  well-informed  men  favourably  disposed 
to  religion,  which  betray  a  lurking  fear  that  if  religious 
beliefs  were  brought  fairly  out  into  the  open  they  would 
not  long  be  able  to  defend  themselves  successfully  against 
the  assaults  of  Science.  “  All  physical  changes,” — we 
hear  it  said — “  including  the  changes  of  the  weather, 
appear  to  be  linked  by  unchanging  laws  to  events  that 
have  preceded  them.  What  room  then  is  left  for  the 
action  of  divine  Providence  ?  All  our  mental  life  seems 
to  be  dependent  upon  processes  taking  place  within  the 
brain — processes  which  are  as  much  subject  to  physical 
law  as  the  weather  or  the  tides.  What  place  then  is  left 
for  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ?  Again  is  not 
Christianity  explainable  by  anthropological  methods  as 
itself  a  mere  natural  phenomenon  ?  Can  it  any  longer,  in 
the  light  of  recent  discoveries,  even  assert  its  uniqueness 
among  the  religions  of  the  world  ?  Have  not  savage 
religions  anticipated  both  its  dogmas  and  its  rites  ?  Can 
we  then  show  any  real  evidence  that  the  ‘  Hand  of  God  ' 
has  been  at  work  in  Nature,  in  history,  even  in  the 
history  of  religion  ?  And  is  the  notion  of  God — as  an 
omnipresent  invisible  Being,  holding  in  His  mind  at  once 
all  the  complicated  contents  of  the  Universe 1 — really 

1  Haeckel,  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  popular  edition,  p.  97. 


A  PRACTICAL  PROBLEM 


5 


conceivable  at  all  ?  Is  not  such  a  God  a  contradiction 
in  terms  ?  The  only  invisible  substances  which  we  can 
readily  conceive  of  as  filling  space  are  certain  gases. 
The  common  notion  of  God,  therefore — it  has  been 
suggested 1 — regards  Him  as  a  ‘  gaseous  vertebrate  ’  :  and 
if  we  seriously  try  to  think  out  our  religious  notions  into 
clearness  is  it  not  to  some  such  unmeaning  contradiction 
that  we  shall  ultimately  be  reduced  ?  Again,  is  it  possible 
to  disentangle  even  the  most  impressive  doctrines  of 
religion  from  the  antiquated  theory  of  the  world  with 
which  they  are  traditionally  associated  ?  If  we  cease 
to  believe  in  Heaven  as  a  place  beyond  the  sky,  what 
conception  of  Heaven  are  we  to  substitute  ?  And  do  not 
similar  difficulties  crop  up  on  every  side  ?  Christ  appears 
to  have  looked  forward  to  collecting  all  nations  before  His 
judgment  seat.  Could  He  have  framed  this  conception 
if  He  had  rightly  estimated  the  numbers  of  the  human 
race  ?  Where  on  the  earth  2  is  room  for  such  a  scene  of 
judgment  to  be  found  ?  And  are  not  the  moral  difficulties 
in  the  conception  of  Divine  judgment  even  greater  than 
the  physical  ones  ?  Is  not  God  too  far  responsible  Him¬ 
self  for  the  evil  of  the  world  to  occupy  the  judicial  throne  ? 
Is  it  not — in  dealing  with  an  Omnipotent  Being — some¬ 
thing  of  an  evasion  to  say  that  He  merely  ‘  permits  ’ 
evil  ?  Must  He  not  be  conceived  as  ‘  causing  5  it  ?  3 
For  even  if  we  can  acquit  Him  of  complicity  with  the 
evil  wrought  by  the  free  will  of  man,  did  He  not  still 
implant  the  evil  tendencies  and  passions  by  which  that 
free  will  has  been  seduced  ?  Is  it  then  substantially 
unfair  if  we  complain  that,  having  enmeshed  us  round 

1  Haeckel,  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  popular  edition,  pp.  93  and 
102. 

2  Acts  i.  11. 


8  Isa.  xlv.  7. 


6 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


with  predestination,  He  has  no  right  to  ‘  impute  our  fall 
to  sin  *  ? 1  Moreover  is  not  ‘  predestination  * — or  at 
least  ‘  determinism  ’  of  some  kind — the  only  scientific 
theory  ?  To  Dr.  Johnson's  assertion  that  we  ‘  know  our 
wills  are  free,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  matter/  might 
we  not  retort  with  truth  that  we  ‘  know  J  that  our  con¬ 
scious  life  is  dependent  on  the  brain  ?  Lastly,  do  not 
the  physicists  threaten  that  one  day  they  will  prove — 
by  the  actual  production  of  a  living  organism  in  the 
laboratory — their  right  to  explain  on  mechanical  princi¬ 
ples  all  the  phenomena  of  life  and  consciousness  ?  ” 

To  such  questions,  of  course,  we  can  often  give  an 
answer  which  sounds  effective  in  debate.  The  material¬ 
istic  arguments — we  may  say — prove  too  much.  The 
argument  that f  a  God  invisibly  present  must  be  conceived 
as  gaseous  or  nothing  ’  might  equally  be  used  to  prove 
the  non-existence  of  the  human  mind.  Our  feelings  and 
thoughts,  though  invisible  and  immaterial,  are  certainly 
real.  If  then  an  immaterial  mind  is  possible,  why  not 
an  immaterial  God  ?  2  Again — when  it  is  said  that 

1  See  Omar  Khayyam,  stanza  57. 

2  The  rejoinder  is  sometimes  made  that  mental  life  is  only 
physical  life  regarded  in  another  aspect.  If  this  mode  of  expres¬ 
sion  serves  provisionally  for  the  clearer  statement  of  any  psy¬ 
chological  problem,  we  have  no  right  to  object  to  it.  But  as 
an  ultimate  account  of  the  facts  it  is  obviously  unsatisfactory. 
We  find  two  quite  distinguishable  objects  of  experience — matter 
and  consciousness.  If,  because  he  finds  it  hard  to  explain  how 
these  two  are  related,  the  physicist  cuts  the  knot  by  declaring 
that  they  are  not  twTo  facts  but  one,  he  merely  shows  that  science 
may  have  its  evasions  no  less  than  theology. 

Some  of  the  other  *  difficulties  *  mentioned  above  are  inci¬ 
dentally  touched  upon  later.  Does  the  conception  of  a  God 
who  is  ‘  attentive  at  all  times  to  millions  of  contradictory  prayers  * 


A  PRACTICAL  PROBLEM 


7 


there  is  no  ‘  room  ’  for  divine  action — it  may  be  shown 
that  on  the  contrary,  physical  and  spiritualistic  ex¬ 
planations  may  be  valid  side  by  side.  The  fact  that  one 
explanation  is  within  its  own  limits  complete,  does  not 
always  exclude  the  right  to  demand  another.  The  colour 
of  an  animal,  for  example,  is  due  to  the  chemical  elements 
that  compose  its  body.  But  even  if  our  explanation 
of  its  colouring  is  chemically  complete,  we  may  still  seek 
to  account  for  these  tints  by  the  part  they  have  played 
in  the  evolution  of  the  species. 1  Similarly  a  complete 
physical  explanation  of  all  the  elements  of  our  mental 
life,  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  would  not  prove  that 
no  more  remained  to  be  said.  The  fact  that  the  ex¬ 
planation  was  physically  complete  would  not  prove 
our  mental  and  moral  life  to  be  the  mere  accidental 
product  of  physical  forces.  Even  in  the  supposed  case 
of  the  living  organism  produced  in  the  laboratory,  the 
physical  factors  would  not  be  the  whole  story.  It  would 
be  absurd  to  say  that  ‘  no  room  is  left  ’  for  any  other ; 
for  we  must  leave  ‘  room  ’  at  least  for  one  other  factor— 
the  mental  labours  of  the  producer.  Indeed  the  analogy 
might  seem  to  make  rather  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  of  an 
Intelligent  ‘  Designer  ’  of  the  world  than  against  it. 

! 

» 

! 

But  we  need  something  better — something  more 

(Haeckel,  p.  97)  differ  in  principle  from  the  case  of  the  debater 
who  sees  in  a  flash  of  thought  all  the  divisions  and  subdivisions 
of  an  elaborate  reply  ? 

1  The  chemical  explanation  of  formic  acid — once  supposed  to 
require  *  vital  force  *  for  its  production — is  so  complete  that 
the  acid  can  be  produced  by  artificial  means.  But  this  fact 
does  not  forbid  us  to  seek  an  evolutionary  explanation  of  the 
occurrence  of  formic  acid  in  ants  and  nettles. 


8 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


systematic — than  '  good  debating  answers/  1  The  fact 
is  that  the  character  of  the  explanation  which  satisfies 
a  man’s  mind  depends  on  the  particular  phenomena 
with  which  he  happens  to  be  familiar.  The  man  who  is 
concerned  simply  with  physical  phenomena  will  rest  con¬ 
tented  with  physical  explanations.  The  man  who  has 
observed  chiefly  the  phenomena  of  the  moral  life  will 
often  be  satisfied  with  theories  that  take  insufficient 
account  of  physical  facts.  Each  however  has  a  right 
to  be  heard.  The  impression  of  physical  uniformity  is  no 
illusion  :  but  neither  again  is  the  sense  of  moral  guilt 
an  illusion.  And  the  intellectual  problem  has  not  been 
solved  till  both  these  classes  of  facts  have  been  adequately 
and  systematically  accounted  for — a  conclusion  which 
is  quite  in  agreement  with  the  view  that  the  sense  of 
Duty  and  of  Guilt  is  the  foundation  stone  of  Christian 
Apologetics. 

1  It  would  be  especially  well  worth  while  to  set  out  in  system¬ 
atic  form  some  of  the  apologetic  arguments  which  sound  im¬ 
pressive  in  poetry.  As  Wordsworth  wrote  of  the  ‘  intimations 
of  immortality  *  which  may  be  derived  ‘  from  recollections  of 
early  childhood/  so  Mr.  Browning  has  given  us  his  intimations 
of  immortality  from  recollections  of  the  Morgue  at  Paris.  M. 
Bourget’s  romance  be  Disciple  closes  with  a  somewhat  similar 
piece  of  reasoning.  There  is  indeed  even  an  element  of  humour 
in  trying  to  picture  the  impression  which  these  passages  of  litera¬ 
ture  must  leave  upon  the  minds,  say,  of  Prof.  Karl  Pearson,  or 
Dr.  J.  G.  Frazer,  or  Miss  Jane  Harrison.  The  connexion  of 
thought  is  plain  enough,  no  doubt,  to  all  who  have  understood 
the  presuppositions  in  the  minds  of  the  authors.  But  the  argu¬ 
ments,  as  arguments,  would  be  of  greater  theological  value  if 
set  out  in  systematic  shape. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  RIVAL  METHODS 

EVEN  more  important  then  than  the  relations  be¬ 
tween  religion  and  physical  knowledge,  is  the 
question  as  to  the  ultimate  ground  on  which  Christianity 
must  rest  its  own  case.  Is  its  appeal  to  be  primarily  an 
appeal  to  the  individual  conscience,  or  is  it  to  be  based 
wholly  or  mainly  upon  the  evidence  of  historical  events, 
such  as  the  miracles  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles  ? 

When  the  Apostles  set  out  on  their  mission, — says  the 
Lyra  Apostolica — 

They  argued  not,  but  preached ;  and  conscience  did  the  rest.1 

Yet  the  view  that  Christian  preaching  should  make 
its  appeal  primarily  to  the  conscience  is  often  disputed, 
and  disputed  by  representatives  of  the  very  school  of 
thought  from  which  the  Lyra  Apostolica  proceeded. 

‘  The  Gospel/  we  are  told  ‘  signifies  “  good  news,”  and 
not  “  good  advice,”  and  therefore  rests  not  on  an  appeal 
to  men's  subjective  moral  convictions,  but  on  the  witness 
of  objective  facts.'  The  Apostle — it  is  pointed  out — 
asserts  that  the  Gospel  which  he  preached  consisted  in 
statements  concerning  the  Death  and  Resurrection  of 
his  Master.2  The  conclusion  drawn  is  that  Christian  be- 

1  Lyra  Apostolica.  lxxx.  2  i  Cor.  xv, 

9 


10 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


lief  is  essentially  a  belief  in  certain  historical  occurrences 
in  the  first  century  of  our  era. 

The  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s,  indeed,  has  gone  so  far  as  to 
argue1  that  a  non-historical  Christianity  is  not  Chris¬ 
tianity  at  all,  that  if  we  ‘  separate  Christianity  from 
the  historical  Christ  ’  we  shall  get  ‘  one  of  three  results 
— either  the  thinly  disguised  paganism  of  Southern 
Europe,  a  religion  only  fit  for  children  and  savages  :  or 
the  deliberate  sophistication  which  keeps  idealism  in 
reserve  for  the  educated,  and  trades  on  the  superstitions 
of  the  vulgar :  or  a  pure  mysticism  which  has  no 
real  connection  with  Christianity.’  How  the  Dean  has 
arrived  at  this  threefold  division  of  our  dangers  is  not 
clear  :  but  it  is  evident  that  so  assured  a  statement  by 
so  able  a  writer  is  worthy  of  our  consideration,  and  that 
the  question,  therefore,  as  to  the  ultimate  basis  of  the 
Christian  claims  cannot  be  dismissed  as  a  subject  on 
which  no  controversy  exists  and  no  decision  is  needed.2 


We  are,  in  fact,  called  to  decide  here  between  two 
radically  different  theories.  We  are  told  on  the  one  hand 
— to  put  the  theory  in  its  most  thorough-going,  and  at  the 
same  time  most  consistent,  form — that  all  that  is  char- 

1  The  Guardian,  May  13,  1910. 

2  If  any  one  thinks  it  needless  to  address  to  theologians  the 
simple  and  elementary  argument  of  the  present  chapter,  let  him 
read  Tanquerey’s  criticism  of  the  Kantian  ethics  ( Synopsis 
Theologies  M oralis  et  Pastor alis.  Tom.  II.  secs.  49-64.)  This 
learned,  candid,  amiable,  and  most  lucid  writer  has  produced  a 
criticism  of  which  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  is  fundamen¬ 
tally  unintelligent.  To  make  morality  dependent  upon  theo¬ 
logical  propositions  is  to  argue  in  a  circle  :  since  apart  from 
moral  ideas  God,  as  Christians  conceive  God,  cannot  even  be 
defined. 


THE  RIVAL  METHODS 


ii 


acteristic  in  the  Christian  religion,  all  that  distinguishes 
it  from  a  barren  Deism,  is  contained  in  certain  doctrines 
which  we  are  not  required  to  judge  on  their  merits,  but 
to  accept  by  faith  :  that  we  have  no  faculties  for  passing 
judgment  on  these  doctrines,  since  ‘  God’s  ways  are 
higher  than  our  ways/  and  ‘  what  is  wisdom  with  the 
world  may  be  foolishness  with  God  ’  :  that  therefore 
the  only  course  is  to  take  them  on  the  authority  of  ac¬ 
credited  teachers,  especially  of  One  ‘  declared  to  be  the 
Son  of  God  with  power  by  His  Resurrection  from  the 
dead/  The  evidence  for  this  and  other  miracles — it  is 
argued — may  be  made  good  by  solid  historical  reasoning, 
and  so  must  afford  a  far  firmer  support  for  religious  con¬ 
viction  than  can  be  given  by  the  shifting  uncertainty  of 
our  inward  intuitions. 

The  opposite  theory  must  rely  on  other  texts  and  other 
arguments.  It  will  maintain  that  he  who  ‘  willeth  to 
do  God’s  Will,  will  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be 
of  God  ’  :  1  that  the  ‘  honest  and  good  heart  ’  applied 
to  the  hearing  of  the  special  call  which  the  Gospel  makes, 
is  the  only  condition  annexed  by  Scripture  to  the  bear¬ 
ing  of  good  fruit  :  that  such  a  heart  will  ‘  of  itself  judge 
that  which  is  right  :  ’  2  and  thus  that  Christianity  must 
show  its  characteristic  power  primarily  by  the  new  type 
of  inward  life  and  outward  service  to  which  it  calls  us. 
The  conclusion  will  be  that  if  Christianity  cannot  make 
good  its  distinctive  claims  to  our  obedience  by  an  appeal 
to  our  moral  consciousness,  its  distinctive  claims  can  never 
be  made  good  at  all. 

The  difference  between  these  two  theories  will  at  once 


1  St.  John  vii.  17. 

2  St.  Luke  viii.  15,  xii.  57. 


12 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


show  itself  in  practice.  The  former,  if  it  acts  consistently, 
must  bid  us  approach  the  sinner  with  Paley’s  Evidences 
or  some  similar  authority  in  our  hand  ;  in  order  that  he 
may  be  convinced  at  once  of  those  miraculous  occurrences 
on  which  alone,  as  the  theory  alleges,  rest  the  claims  of 
Christ  to  be  accepted  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  The 
other  theory  would  lead  us  to  adopt  the  method  of  calling 
the  sinner  first  to  repentance,  bidding  him  take  upon 
himself  the  yoke  of  obedience  to  Christ’s  moral  commands, 
and  leave  the  belief  in  miracles  to  come  to  him  later — 
if  so  it  should  happen — after  the  work  of  reconciliation 
with  God  is  accomplished.  It  would  not  be  too  much 
to  say  that  till  the  question  between  these  two  theories 
is  settled  one  way  or  the  other,  it  is  impossible  to  take 
any  one  step  in  Theology  securely. 


Let  us  consider  first,  then,  the  theory,  which,  bidding 
us  distrust  the  judgments  of  our  own  moral  consciousness, 
asserts  that  Christianity  stands  or  falls  with  the  evidence 
for  certain  historical  events. 

The  best  way,  perhaps,  of  judging  this  method  of  re¬ 
liance  on  supernatural  evidence,  is  to  suppose  it  entirely 
successful.  Let  us  suppose  that  we  had  at  hand  the 
fullest  external  evidence  that  the  nature  of  the  case  ad¬ 
mits.  Let  us  suppose  that  the  leaders  of  the  Christian 
Church  could  now  perform  miracles  such  as  even  their 
adversaries  must  recognise  as  genuine.  Let  us  suppose 
also  that  historical  evidence  was  found  which  strengthened 
the  probability  for  the  Resurrection  and  other  miracles 
of  our  Saviour,  till  it  became  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  certainty,  not  for  the  Christian  believer  only  but  for 
every  student  of  history.  How  much  of  the  case  in 


THE  RIVAL  METHODS 


13 

favour  of  Christianity  would  this  purely  external  evidence 
be  able  to  prove  ? 

It  is  surely  clear  that  it  must  wholly  fail  to  prove  the 
one  thing  with  which  the  religious  man  is  most  seriously 
concerned— namely  the  moral  claim  of  Christianity  upon 
our  obedience.  If  we  really  left  it  an  open  question 
whether  our  sense  of  the  holiness  of  the  Christ  of  Whom 
we  read  in  the  Gospels,  and  of  the  purity  of  His  Law,  was 
a  correct  judgment  or  a  delusion,  we  might  still  perhaps 
prove  by  the  evidence  of  miracles  that  Christ  was  sent 
by  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  world,  and  that  it  would 
be  to  our  interest  here  and  hereafter  to  take  Christ's 
side  against  His  enemies  :  but  that  obedience  to  the 
Gospel  was  right  as  well  as  prudent,  and  disobedience 
essentially  sinful  as  well  as  unwise,  we  could  not  show.  An 
act  does  not  become  right  merely  because  it  has  the 
approval  of  the  strongest  Being  in  the  Universe  as  such  : 
and  if  we  were  really  incapable  of  perceiving  that  He  of 
Whom  we  read  in  the  Gospel  is  holy,  and  His  teaching 
pure,  no  weight  of  external  authority  could  show  it  us. 
The  story  of  the  half-witted  peasant  woman,  who — 
on  being  told  that  the  final  battle  between  good  and  evil 
had  been  fought,  and  that  it  was  God  and  not  the  Devil 
who  had  been  vanquished — said  that  none  the  less 
she  should  still  remain  faithful  to  her  Master,  presents 
us  with  a  far  nobler  conception  than  that  which  relies 
on  miracles  and  external  power  as  the  ultimate  basis  of 
authority  in  religion. 

The  contention  that  the  final  appeal  must  be  to 
external  facts  rather  than  to  the  inward  witness  of  con¬ 
science  may  often  be  presented,  it  is  true,  in  an  attractive 
form.  It  chimes  in  with  that  deep-seated  sense  of 


14 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


dependence  and  distrust  of  self  which  is  essential  to  true 
religion.  It  agrees  also  with  the  quite  reasonable  ten¬ 
dency,  which  appears  in  men  who  have  already  perceived 
the  moral  value  of  Christian  teaching,  to  turn  to  external 
authority  for  the  solution  of  perplexities  which  still 
remain.  The  Evangelical,  who,  when  troubled  with 
doubts  concerning  his  own  Salvation,  is  reassured  by  the 
universality  of  the  promises  in  the  ‘  Written  Word  *  ;  the 
Catholic  penitent,  who  allows  his  fears  to  be  overcome 
because  of  the  sentence  of  absolution  which  the  Church 
pronounces  ;  are  both  examples  of  the  same  eminently 
sane  belief  that  the  Bible  or  the  Church,  the  accepted 
guides  of  millions  of  our  fellow-men,  are  in  some  respects 
more  worthy  of  trust  than  private  scruples  of  our  own. 
Securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum,  and  ‘  Shall  not  the  Judge 
of  all  the  earth  do  right  ?  ’  are  both  in  their  respective 
ways  just  maxims  :  and  both  call  us  away  from  our 
individual  selves  to  something  which  is  in  a  sense  ex¬ 
ternal  to  us.  Yet  it  is  surely  clear  that  neither  the  one 
maxim  nor  the  other  can  ever  attain  to  the  rank  of  a 
personal  conviction,  apart  from  a  basis  of  private  moral 
judgment — a  judgment  that  has  recognized  that  in 
many  unquestionable  respects  the  general  constitution 
of  the  world  is  good  ;  and  therefore  trusts  that  mankind 
will  not  be  utterly  deceived  or  misled,  even  in  matters 
that  at  present  seem  obscure. 

A  lack  of  ultimate  confidence,  then,  in  our  own  moral 
judgments  would  in  the  end  undermine  Religion.  After 
we  have  perceived  for  ourselves  Christ’s  right  to  our 
allegiance,  it  may  produce  in  us  an  infinite  spiritual 
exhilaration — it  may  beget  us  again  unto  a  lively  hope 1 — 

1  i  St.  Pet.  i.  3. 


THE  RIVAL  METHODS 


15 


to  become  convinced  that  He  rose  from  the  dead.  But 
apart  from  the  power  to  perceive,  by  an  act  of  moral 
judgment,  that  He  has  this  claim  upon  us,  the  evidence 
of  the  Resurrection  will  have  no  religious  significance 
for  us  whatever.  A  theology  indeed,  which  should  take 
an  ultimate  reliance  on  miracles,  and  a  distrust  of  our 
own  spiritual  insight,  as  serious  principles,  would  be  the 
helpless  prey  of  the  *  lying  wonders  ^  foretold  in  Scripture. 
So  soon  as  the  False  Prophet  could  claim  that  the  pre¬ 
ponderance  of  miracles  was  on  his  side,  the  theologians 
of  this  school  must  desert  the  cause  of  Christ  and  go  over 
to  the  enemy.2 

It  follows  that  the  first  step  in  the  acceptance  of  the 
Christian  Religion — the  perception  of  its  intrinsic  claim 

1  2  Thess.  ii.  9. 

2  It  is  important  here  to  separate  distinct  issues.  Miracles 
are  not  the  primary  ground  for  belief  in  Christianity  :  but  it 
does  not  follow  that  no  miracles  have  ever  occurred.  Again,  it 
is  true  that  in  the  last  resort  we  must  trust  our  own  moral  judg¬ 
ments  (since  even  acceptance  of  authority  is  an  act  of  private 
judgment)  :  but  it  does  not  follow  that  we  should  be  right  in 
desiring  to  exclude  at  any  point  the  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  truth  is  the  very  opposite.  It  is  only  when  we  distinguish 
clearly  in  practice  between  our  own  personal  discoveries  and 
the  beliefs  we  have  taken  on  trust  from  others,  that  we  learn 
to  find  in  the  former  the  one  convincing  evidence  of  the  Spirit’s 
reality  and  power. 

Further,  we  must  distinguish  the  various  objects  to  which 
in  this  connexion  our  faculty  of  moral  judgment  needs  to  be 
applied.  There  is,  first,  the  special  and  distinctive  moral  ideal 
which  Christianity  expresses.  This  would  remain  unchanged 
even  though  the  whole  of  Christian  history  were  proved  fictitious. 
There  is,  secondly,  Christianity  as  a  phenomenon  of  the  modern 
world,  with  its  Bible,  its  Sacraments,  its  public  activities,  its 
private  victories  of  grace.  The  man  of  learning  is  often  unaware 
how  much  it  is  the  Christianity  of  the  present  which  is  the  real 
witness  of  God  to  those  who  read  the  Bible  in  the  English,  Yet 
no  clergyman,  who  keeps  his  eyes  open  and  knows  Christian 


16  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

upon  our  obedience— is  a  step  which  our  moral  faculties 
must  take  alone,  unaided  by  the  evidence  of  signs,  or 
wonders,  or  mighty  works. 

piety  when  he  sees  it,  can  long  be  of  opinion  that  a  ‘  non-his- 
torical  Christianity  is  not  Christianity  at  all  ’  unless  his  clerical 
experience  is  gained  almost  exclusively  in  academic  circles. 
Thirdly,  there  is  the  Christianity  of  the  past,  especially  the  Chris¬ 
tianity  of  the  first  century,  which  even  for  the  scholar  raises 
many  obscure  and  intricate  problems.  If  the  claims  of  Christian¬ 
ity  rested  upon  history,  in  any  strict  sense  of  the  word,  then 
they  would  be  resting  upon  knowledge  which  can  come  to  the 
ordinary  believer  at  second  hand  only. 


CHAPTER  III 

THEOLOGY,  PRESENT  AND  PAST 
NE  of  the  chief  facts  of  the  present  theological 


\_y  situation  is  the  influence  exerted,  both  in  Eng¬ 
land  and  in  Scotland,  by  the  school  of  Ritschl. 

This  school  of  thought  had  its  origin  among  men  trained 
in  modern  methods  of  research — men  who  though  they 
had  abandoned  the  traditional  beliefs  concerning  the 
divine  creation  and  government  of  the  world,  had  none 
the  less  felt  the  unique  power  of  Christ  and  His  Gospel 
to  bring  peace  and  decisive  victory  into  the  inward  life. 

Thus  the  relation  between  these  teachers  and  the  prob¬ 
lem  with  which  we  are  here  concerned  is  plain.  The  two 
principal  doctrines  which  the  Ritschlian  school  advances 
may  be  provisionally  expressed  in  the  following  state¬ 
ments — first,  that  Christianity  can  justify  itself  by  an 
appeal  to  spiritual  experience,1  and  by  that  only  ;  second¬ 
ly,  that  religious  knowledge  belongs  to  so  special  a  depart¬ 
ment  of  human  life,  and  is  of  so  special  a  character,  that 
we  cannot — as  the  theologians  of  the  past  have  tried  to 
do — unite  religious  and  other  knowledge  in  a  single 
system.  Knowledge  of  God  and  scientific  knowledge  of 
the  world  are  regarded  as  quite  disconnected  pursuits. 

1  For  the  two  senses  of  the  word  ‘  experience  ’  compare  note 

on  p  137. 


17 


C 


1 8 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


In  theology,  according  to  the  Ritschlian  view,  it  is  not 
only  our  first  step  which  depends  on  spiritual  experience 
(as  we  have  already  seen  to  be  the  case),  but  all  the 
succeeding  steps  likewise. 


It  will  make  the  purport  of  the  following  pages  clearer 
to  state  here  in  outline  the  conclusion  to  which  they  lead. 
Briefly,  it  is  that  the  Ritschlian  school  is  right  in  the  one 
assertion,  and  wrong  in  the  other  :  right  in  affirming  the 
dependence  of  theology  on  the  appeal  to  experience,  wrong 
in  denying  the  possibility  of  uniting  in  a  single  scheme 
religious  and  physical  knowledge.  The  question  will  then 
remain  whether  the  older  theology  has  conceived  this 
‘  single  scheme  '  in  a  satisfactory  manner. 

One  whole  department  of  religious  knowledge  is  based 
on  experience  directly  and  immediately.  The  doctrines 
of  Sin,  of  Grace,  of  Personal  Salvation  through  Christ — 
though  commonly  associated  with  the  orthodox  dogma 
concerning  Christ’s  Person — are  still,  as  Ritschl  has  shown, 
not  absolutely  inseparable  from  it.  On  religious  experi¬ 
ence,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  entirely  dependent. 

The  facts  which  in  this  connexion  we  shall  have  first  to 
consider  relate  to  the  contact  of  the  believer  with  Christ, 
His  example  and  His  law  1  ;  to  the  effect  of  this  contact 
in  delivering  men  from  the  sense  of  guilt  and  the  power  of 
temptation  ;  to  the  peculiar  spell  which  Jesus  has  thrown 
upon  His  followers,  which  is  such  that  they  have  not 
hesitated,  either  in  theory  or  in  practice,  to  treat  Him  as 
equal  with  God.  If  we  find  that  this  influence  is  not 
merely  powerful  with  other  men,  but  that  we  ourselves 

1  St.  John  xv.  3. 


THEOLOGY  PRESENT  AND  PAST 


*9 


yield  to  it  willingly  and  with  our  eyes  open,  convinced 
that  apart  from  it  all  that  is  best  in  our  lives  would  vanish 
away — if  this  same  willing  consent  to  subjection  to  Christ 
continues  unweakened,  even  when  we  come  to  doubt  or 
to  reject  the  received  dogmas  of  theology,  so  that  His 
influence  has  still  for  us  the  ‘  value  of  God  ’  in  the  sense 
that  we  neither  want  nor  can  conceive  anything  higher 
or  better  than  it — we  are  then  bound  as  reasonable  men 
to  give  some  theoretical  account  of  experiences  which 
possess  so  distinct  a  character.  If  this  is  how  we  regard 
the  Founder  of  Christianity,  then — even  if  we  adopted  a 
wholly  materialistic  theory  of  the  Universe  so  far  as  con¬ 
cerns  its  origin  and  future  fate — we  might  still  assert  that 
the  world  is  not  a  f  Godless  ’  world  since  it  has  contained 
Jesus  :  we  should  still  have  the  foundations  for  a  high 
Christological  theory,  even  though  it  be  something  very 
different  from  the  Christology  of  the  early  Church.  And 
thus  our  conclusion  would  be  that  though  the  traditional 
theology  may  need  a  drastic  revision,  there  is  in  it  much 
which  is  worthy  of  profoundly  respectful  study. 

But,  secondly,  though  the  Ritschlian  school  has  done 
excellent  work  in  showing  how  the  true  basis  of  Christian 
theology  lies  in  Christian  experience,  there  are  other 
respects  in  which  it  has  failed.  It  has  not  always  done 
justice  to  the  work  of  the  older  divines  :  especially  to 
those  arguments  by  which  Paley  and  others  have  sought  to 
establish  an  optimistic  theory  of  the  Universe.  Dr.  Bosan- 
quet 1  has  spoken  of  the  f  permanent  meaning  of  the  Argu¬ 
ment  from  Design/  and  Kant  in  his  day  used  somewhat 
similar  language.  We  shall  find  that,  in  spite  of  grave 
defects  of  statement  and  of  conception,  the  Argument  from 


1  Proceedings  oj  the  Aristotelian  Society,  vol.  ii.  p.  44. 


20 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Design,  alike  in  its  ancient  and  modem  forms,  contains  a 
thought  that  is  both  profound  and  correct.  The  Chris¬ 
tians  of  the  first  age,  who  believed  themselves  to  have 
known  God  in  the  inner  life  as  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  also 
had  recognized  an  immediate  revelation  of  God  in  human 
form  in  Jesus,  were  convinced  that  the  same  Divine  Will, 
in  spite  of  sin  and  evil,  was  truly  working  itself  out  in 
Nature  and  in  human  history,  and  that  the  Creator  and 
Governor  of  the  Universe  might  be  known  as  the  Father 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  In  the  face  of  abundant  temp¬ 
tations  to  Pessimism,  their  view  of  the  world  remained 
Optimistic  :  and  their  Optimism  was  of  that  thorough¬ 
going  sort  from  which  it  would  follow  that  if  the  position 
of  Jesus  in  the  Universe  is  that  of  King  de  jure,  He  is  also 
King  de  facto.  The  doctrinal  outcome  of  this  faith  was 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation. 
The  Christian  recognition  of  Christ  as  Lord,  joined  with 
such  a  Theism  as  was  dominant  in  the  intellectual  world 
of  the  first  four  centuries,  required  that  Christ  should 
be  recognized  as  *  Consubstantial  with  the  Father.’ 1  We 
have  only  to  turn  to  the  heresies  which  at  various  stages 
confronted  the  orthodox  dogma  as  its  rivals,  to  see  how 
deep  a  gratitude  we  owe  to  the  orthodox  Greek  Fathers 
for  the  intellectual  courage  which  asserted,  in  the  only 
form  in  which  it  could  in  their  day  have  been  asserted 
effectively,  the  optimistic  faith  which  is  native  to  the 
Christian  spirit. 

But  can  we  rest  absolutely  satisfied  with  Christian 
theology  as  it  took  shape  by  the  time  of  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon  ?  This  is  our  remaining  question  and  we 
shall  find  that  we  must  answer  it  in  the  negative.  The 

1  See  chap.  xvii.  below. 


THEOLOGY  PRESENT  AND  PAST 


21 


theology  of  the  Greek  Fathers  was  a  most  serious  and 
heroic  attempt  :  but  it  is  hard  to  see  how  any  candid 
critic  can  think  it  wholly  successful.  The  difficulties 
of  the  traditional  theology  have  become  in  recent  times 
peculiarly  evident  :  and  the  embarrassment  will  be  found 
to  be  on  the  side,  not  of  those  who  deny  its  complete 
consistency,  but  of  those  who  try  to  maintain  it.  Thus 
we  shall  conclude  that  the  absolute  homage  which  the 
Christian  spirit  renders  to  Christ,  has  not  yet  found  its 
final  theological  expression. 

Such  a  conclusion  implies  that  the  task  which  still 
awaits  the  theologian  is  indeed  gigantic.  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  in  a  happy  phrase,  has  expressed  the  doubt  whether 
theology  has  yet  found  its  Newton.  We  shall  see,  more 
and  more  clearly  as  we  proceed,  that  no  theological 
formula  has  been  put  forward  which  deserves  to  be  treated 
as  being  at  all  on  the  same  level  with  the  great  generaliza¬ 
tion  by  which  Newton  brought  unity  into  the  realm  of 
physical  knowledge.  Indeed  the  utmost  that  we  can 
hope  for  in  our  generation  is  that  we  may  do  some  of  the 
preliminary  work  by  which  the  task  of  the  theological 
Newton  shall  be  made  easier  when  he  comes. 

If  it  is  feared  that  the  undertaking  of  so  vast  an  intel¬ 
lectual  task  as  is  here  suggested  is  inconsistent  with  the 
faith  that  Christianity  is,  above  all  things,  a  religion  for 
the  simple,  we  need  only  remind  ourselves  of  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  religious  experience  and  theological 
definition.  The  simplest  can  fall  under  the  spell  of  our 
Saviour,  and  can  knowT  that  His  influence  is  of  more  worth 
than  all  in  the  world  beside.  The  simplest  can  know  what 
Christ  is,  not  only  to  the  soul  but  to  the  Church — to  that 
f  redeemed  community  ’  through  which  the  knowledge 
of  Christ  comes  to  the  individual.  The  simplest  can  see 


22 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


the  Finger  of  God  in  the  events  of  life  and  history,  and  in 
the  midst  of  a  world  of  sin  can  bask  in  the  sunshine  of 
God’s  love.  But  Christianity  nevertheless  is  unable 
permanently  to  dispense  with  the  work  of  the  scientific 
theologian.  The  example  of  those  Churches  where 
intellectual  darkness  has  been  followed  by  spiritual 
decline,  leads  us  to  infer  that  no  high  level  of  spiritual 
experience  can  ever  long  be  maintained  except  where  its 
results  are  garnered  by  careful  intellectual  labour  in  the 
form  of  clear  and  systematic  statements.  But  if — to  use 
Dr.  Newman’s  comparison — we  are  to  write  dowrn  in 
scientific  form  all  that  we  know  of  God  and  call  it  theology, 
just  as  we  write  down  all  that  we  know  of  the  earth  and 
call  it  geology,  it  is  obvious  that  this  must  be  a  task 
which  will  require  the  efforts  of  the  best  intellects  of  many 
succeeding  generations. 

Theology  has  been  called  the  Queen  of  the  Sciences. 
There  are  some  theologians  of  whom  it  might  well  be  said 
that  this  phrase,  though  near  to  their  lips,  is  far  from  their 
hearts.  Too  commonly  the  name  is  used  as  a  mere 
honorific  title  :  and  Theology  is  called  the  Queen  of  the 
Sciences  in  the  same  sort  of  sense  in  which  Brighton  is 
called  the  Queen  of  Watering-places.  In  their  proper 
meaning  the  words  make  a  very  high  claim  indeed.1 
And  on  this  claim  the  theologian  ought  strenuously  to 
insist — not  in  the  sense  of  desiring  to  limit  freedom  of 
thought  and  research  in  each  separate  field,  but  rather 
in  the  sense  that  knowledge  must  aim  at  becoming  a 
systematic  whole.  The  work  of  systematizing  is  the 
special  work  of  the  philosopher.  In  this  aspect  of  the 
matter  it  makes  no  great  difference  whether  we  call 


1  Cf.  Summa  Theol.  Pars.  i.  Qu.  i.  Art  v.,  Gonclusio. 


THEOLOGY  PRESENT  AND  PAST 


23 


the  central  science  Theology  or  Metaphysic.  But  for 
those  who  believe  in  God,  God  must  stand  at  the  centre  : 
and  therefore  it  is  strange  that  any  thinker  should  rest 
contented  with  a  doctrine  of  God  which  does  not  seek 
in  the  end  to  become  also  a  theory  of  the  Universe.  In 
these  matters  the  only  safe  course  is  the  bold  one  :  and 
till  theology  dares  in  some  sense  to  claim  its  old  position 
and  to  emancipate  itself  from  the  tyranny  of  the  special¬ 
ist,  must  it  not  fail  to  afford  to  religion  the  support  which 
religion  needs  in  an  age  of  widespread  doubt  ? 

In  truth  we  have  no  more  right  to  leave  to  the  Fathers 
of  the  early  Church  a  monopoly  of  hard  thinking,  than 
to  leave  to  the  Martyrs  a  monopoly  of  heroic  suffering. 
Those  whose  task  it  is  to  commend  Christ  and  His  Gospel 
to  the  modern  world  must  lack  neither  intellectual  industry 
nor  intellectual  courage. 


CHAPTER  IV 


MORALITY 


HE  main  conclusion,  however,  to  which  the  preceding 


-L  chapters  have  brought  us  is  simple  and  definite- 
Christianity  depends — we  have  seen — upon  the  appeal  to 
conscience.  In  taking  his  first  step,  the  Christian  apolo¬ 
gist  must  rely  solely  on  the  moral  consciousness  of  his 


hearer. 


And  thus  it  becomes  a  matter  of  primary  importance  to 
inquire  how  far  this  method  of  apology  will  carry  us. 
How  many  of  the  beliefs  of  religion  rest  on  a  purely  moral 
foundation  ?  And — first — how  far  is  the  testimony  of 
moral  consciousness  itself  worthy  of  our  trust  ? 

There  are  those  who  assert  that  all  morality  in  general 
is  an  illusion,  an  instinct  ‘  useful  to  the  species but 
revealing  no  absolute  truth.  What  other  conclusion — 
asks  the  sceptic — can  we  draw  from  the  variety  and 
inconsistency  of  the  moral  judgments  of  mankind  ?  The 
story  of  Darius,  who  startled  his  Greek  subjects  with 
the  proposal  that  they  should  eat  the  bodies  of  their 
deceased  parents  after  the  manner  of  the  Calatian  Indians, 
and  evoked  an  equal  horror  in  the  Indians  by  suggesting 
that  they  should  burn  their  parents  after  the  manner 
of  the  Greeks,  is  told  by  Herodotus  in  order  to  point  the 


24 


MORALITY 


25 


moral  that  '  custom  is  king  of  all  men/  1  Many  similar 
divergences  of  moral  view  are  collected  by  Locke  in  the 
famous  chapter2  in  which  he  maintains  that  men  possess 
no  '  innate  practical  principles/  The  Mengrelians  '  a 
people  professing  Christianity  1  bury  their  children  alive 
without  scruple.  The  Caribbees  make  their  children  fat 
on  purpose  to  kill  and  eat  them.  The  virtues  whereby 
the  Tououpinamboes  believed  they  merited  Paradise  were 
Revenge  and  eating  abundance  of  their  enemies. 

Now  the  criticism  of  sceptical  theories  of  morality  is 
for  many  reasons  an  interesting  subject  :  and  it  is  quite 
worth  while  to  point  out  that  though  the  sceptics  have 
done  good  work  in  correcting  certain  hasty  conclusions, 
they  have  at  the  same  time  been  guilty  of  a  good  deal  both 
of  exaggeration  and  irrelevance.  Even  an  extreme  case, 
such  as  the  experiment  of  Darius,  bears  witness  to  a 
fundamental  agreement.  The  principle  that  one  must 
honour  one’s  dead  relations  is  accepted  on  all  sides  :  it  is 
only  on  the  special  issue  whether  the  honour  is  to  be 
shown  by  burning  them,  eating  them  or  burying  them, 
that  the  divergence  occurs  :  and  this,  after  all,  is  a  minor 
matter.  Again,  it  must  be  remembered  that  errors  in 
moral  judgment  no  more  prove  that  our  moral  faculties 
are  ultimately  untrustworthy  than  arithmetical  blunders 
prove  that  we  have  no  trustworthy  faculties  for  discovering 
mathematical  truth. 

Yet  for  our  present  purpose  this  merely  negative  type 
of  argument  is  insufficient.  The  main  concern  of  the 
religious  teacher  is  to  produce  positive  conviction  :  and 
nothing  is  really  needed  for  the  support  of  moral  beliefs, 
when  these  are  assailed  by  sceptical  theories,  except  to 

1  Herod,  iii.  38. 

2  An  Essay  concerning  Human  Understanding ,  Bk.  I.  ch.  iii. 


26 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


make  men  attend  honestly  to  the  processes  of  their  own 
thought. 

In  this  work,  the  most  valuable  of  all  assistance  will 
be  found  in  the  moral  writings  of  Kant.  Though  the 
sublimity  of  the  Kantian  morality  is  generally  recognized, 
the  complaint  is  often  made  that  his  style  is  too  difficult 
and  technical  for  the  purposes  of  popular  teaching.  The 
truth  is,  however,  that  those  parts  of  his  moral  treatises 
which  are  clearest  and  least  controversial,  are  just  those 
which  possess  the  highest  practical  and  religious  value. 
At  the  worst,  Kant  is  not  a  more  difficult  writer  than  St. 
Paul.  He  is,  moreover,  admirably  adapted,  by  the 
gravity  and  dignity  of  his  thought,  to  a  method  of  popular 
treatment  not  dissimilar  to  that  in  which  Scripture  is 
expounded  in  the  pulpit. 

The  place  of  Kant  in  Christian  apologetics  will  best  be 
shown  by  making,  first,  a  statement  of  the  least  question¬ 
able  parts  of  his  teaching,  accompanied  by  such  incidental 
comments  and  criticisms  as  are  germane  to  the  present 
subject  :  and,  secondly,  by  inquiring  whether  for  all 
those  who  have  really  understood  him, — even  if  in  very 
large  measure  they  dissent  from  his  views — he  has  not 
made  it  for  ever  impossible  to  relapse  into  the  suspicion 
that  morality  is  an  illusion,  an  evolutionary  accident  and 
nothing  more.  For  our  present  purpose  it  is  more  impor¬ 
tant,  perhaps,  to  reflect  on  the  Kantian  doctrines  and 
phrases,  one  by  one,  than  to  gain  a  connected  view  of 
his  system. 


Kant’s  moral  teaching  begins1  with  the  assertion  of 
1  For  many  readers  there  can  be  nothing  new  in  Chapters  IV 


MORALITY 


27 


principles  which  popular  thought,  when  it  has  grasped 
their  meaning,  will  at  once  admit.  There  is  nothing, — 
he  maintains, — in  the  world  nor  outside  it,  which  can 
be  regarded  as  unconditionally  good  except  a  Good  Will 
only.1  Talents,  courage,  riches,  health,  are  in  many 
aspects  worthy  objects  of  desire,2  but  they  are  not  good 
unconditionally,  since  they  may  all  become  evil  if  the 
will  which  makes  use  of  them  is  a  bad  one  :  and  thus  a 
reasonable  and  impartial  spectator  can  find  no  satisfaction 
in  contemplating  the  uninterrupted  prosperity  of  a  being 
wholly  destitute  of  Good  Will.3  Even  self  control,  which 
appears  to  make  part  of  our  inner  worth,  and  was  extolled 
unconditionally  by  the  ancients,4  is  far  from  deserving 
to  be  called  good  without  qualification.  The  coolness  of  a 
rascal  ( Bosewicht )  makes  him  not  only  the  more  dangerous, 
but  also  the  more  intrinsically  odious.  Thus,  while  all 
other  good  things  depend  for  their  goodness  on  subordina¬ 
tion  to  a  Good  Will,  the  Good  Will  is  good  quite  inde¬ 
pendently  of  anything  else,  and  for  its  own  sake  alone. 

Kant,  of  course,  is  not  speaking  of  those  shadowy  '  good 
intentions  ’  with  which,  according  to  the  proverb,  Hell  is 
paved.  He  is  speaking  ‘  not  of  a  mere  wish’,  but  of  the 
will  which,  so  far  as  lies  in  its  power,  summons  all  the 
necessary  means  to  the  end  at  which  it  is  aiming.5  It 
is  often  said,  with  perfect  truth,  that  some  of  the  worst 
things  in  the  world  are  done  by  well-meaning  persons  : 
and,  moreover,  that  these  persons  deserve  the  severest 

and  V,  except  so  far  as  they  bear  indirectly  upon  the  question 
of  the  usefulness  of  the  Kantian  ethics  for  the  purposes  of  the 
Bible-class  and  the  Pulpit. 

1  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  p.  393.  The  refer¬ 
ences  are  to  the  German  paging. 

2  P.  393.  3  P.  393.  4  P.  394.  5  P.  394. 


28 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


blame  if  they  confide  in  the  mere  excellence  of  their 
intentions  without  making  any  serious  attempt  to  gauge 
the  probable  effects  of  their  actions.  This  common  type 
of  mental  indolence  would  be  clearly  recognized  by  Kant 
as  betraying  a  defect  of  Good  Will.  But  wherever  the 
Good  Will  is  serious,  there  its  mere  failure — due  to  no 
fault  of  its  own — to  carry  out  its  purpose,  cannot  detract 
in  any  degree  from  the  respect  which  is  felt  for  it. 

We  all  distinguish,  in  judging  of  human  actions,  between 
the  actions  that  are  due  to  pure  motives  and  those  that 
spring  from  motives  either  base  or  ‘  mixed  \  There  has 
been,  in  consequence,  a  very  general  revolt  against  any 
use  of  language  which  has  seemed  to  found  the  claims  of 
religion  on  a  mere  calculation  of  profit  and  loss.  The 
fact  is  that  the  value  of  the  best  result  is  felt  to  be  im¬ 
paired  if  it  was  wrought  from  motives  of  self-interest ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  value  of  an  act  which  pro¬ 
ceeds  from  genuinely  good  motives,  is  in  no  way  impaired 
by  its  ill-success, — a  conception  of  morality  which  may 
very  well  be  summed  up  in  the  Kantian  doctrine  that  we 
value  Good  Will  for  itself  and  not  for  its  effects  :  that 
though  Good  Will  is  not  the  only  good  or  the  whole  good, 
it  is  still  the  highest  good,  and  is  also  that  upon  which  the 
goodness  of  all  other  things  depends.1 

The  assertion,  however,  that  the  Good  Will  possesses 
unconditional  worth  apart  from  any  good  results  to 
which  it  may  lead,  is — as  Kant  confesses — a  somewhat 
startling  proposition.  Such  language  begets  the  suspicion 
that  it  is  based  upon  some  highflown  fancy  ( bloss  hoch- 
fiiegende  Phantasterei ).2  It  is  in  order  to  remove  this 
suspicion  that  Kant  is  led  to  examine  the  notion  of  ‘  Duty  \ 


1  P-  394>  399- 


2  P-  394- 


MORALITY 


29 


And  here  Kant  makes  not  merely  the  obvious  contrast 
between  acting  from  duty  and  acting  from  motives  of 
self-interest :  he  contrasts  duty  with  ‘  inclination  ’,  in  the 
sense  in  which  even  benevolent  inclinations  are  included. 1 
Love  of  our  neighbour,  regarded  as  a  sentiment,  is  not 
within  our  control  and  cannot  be  enjoined  upon  us. 
When,  therefore,  Scripture  bids  us  love  our  neighbour  as 
ourselves,  this  command,  says  Kant,  is  to  be  understood 
as  relating  not  to  feeling  but  to  action,  to  love  which  is 
not  '  pathological  ’  but  ‘  practical/  2  He  compares  those 
who  are  so  sympathetically  constituted  that,  without  any 
motives  of  vanity  or  self-interest,  they  take  delight  in 
spreading  joy  around  them,  with  the  person  whose  feeling 
for  the  joys  of  others  has  been  deadened  by  his  own 
sorrows,  who  yet  rouses  himself  out  of  his  stupor  and  does 
from  pure  duty  the  benevolent  action  from  which  he  is  too 
sorrowful  to  reap  any  sympathetic  pleasure.  The  action 
of  the  former  has  much  real  loveliness,3  yet  it  is  the  action 
of  the  latter  alone  that  has  in  the  strict  sense  ‘  moral 
worth  ’.  The  one  is  done  in  accordance  with  duty 
(pflichtmassig)  ;  the  other  for  duty’s  sake  (aus  Pflicht ). 

At  first  sight,  perhaps,  this  teaching  may  seem  to  run 
counter  to  many  accepted  notions.  In  appearance  it 
conflicts  with  our  preference  for  an  act  of  spontaneous 
unreflective  kindness  over  that  which  is  laboriously 
framed  by  regard  to  moral  laws. 

Our  hesitation  in  accepting  the  Kantian  view  arises 
partly,  no  doubt,  from  certain  associations  which  the 
word  ‘  duty  ’  carries  with  it  in  English.4  But  that 
the  objection  is  not  entirely  a  question  of  words,  is  shown 

1  P.  399-  2  P.  399-  3  P-  398. 

4  In  English  ‘  principle’,  rather  than  f  duty  ’  is  sometimes  the 

better  word  to  use. 


30 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


in  the  well  known  epigram  of  Schiller.1  Would  my 
acts  of  kindness  to  my  friends — he  asks  in  effect — become 
of  greater  moral  worth  if  I  could  succeed  in  extinguishing 
all  my  friendly  feelings  towards  them  ?  Obviously  we 
must  answer  this  question  in  the  negative.  Even  though 
we  should  be  sorry  to  think  of  our  benefactor  as  one  who 
merely  ‘  goes  by  his  feelings *,  we  still  prefer  that  the 
friendly  feelings  should  exist.  The  solution  of  this  diffi¬ 
culty  however  is  really  simple.2  What  we  want  chiefly 
to  know  of  a  man  is  whether  he  has  enough  ‘  high  princi¬ 
ple  '  to  enable  him  to  act  rightly  when  his  emotions  fail 
him  as  guides  to  conduct.  Even  the  overflowing  charity 
of  a  St.  Francis  would  not  receive  our  unqualified  praise, 
if  it  were  not  that  we  are  absolutely  convinced  that  high 
principle  was  its  basis.  If  we  suspected  that  the  charity 
of  St.  Francis,  like  the  zeal  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  was 
dependent  on  mere  effervescence  of  emotion,  our  estimate 
of  St.  Francis  would  be  very  different  from  what  it  is. 
The  man  dependent  on  emotion  is  not  merely  less  worthy 

1  Gewissensskrupel 

Gerne  dien’  ich  den  Freunden,  doch  thu’  ich  es  leider  mit  Neigung 
Und  so  wurmt  es  mir  oft,  dass  ich  nicht  tugendhaft  bin. 

Entscheidung 

Daist  kein  anderer  Rat,  du  musst  suchen,  sie  zu  verachten 
Und  mit  Abscheu  alsdann  thun,  wie  die  Pflicht  dir  gebeut. 

2  The  criticism  of  Schiller  is  answered  in  advance  in  what 
Kant  says  on  the  subject  of  a  ‘  Holy  Will  \  such  a  Will  as  we 
attribute  to  God.  A  Will  f  whose  maxims  necessarily  agree 
with  the  laws  of  freedom  ’  (autonomy)  is  absolutely  good.  God 
(ein  heiliges  Wesen)  is  not  to  be  considered  as  under  any  obligation, 
and  our  dignity  (. Erhabenheit )  depends  not  on  our  subjection 
to  the  Moral  Law  but  rather  on  the  fact  that  the  rational  will 
is  se//-legislative  (430-440).  Thus  Kant  does  not  treat  the 
goodness  of  a  Good  Will  as  wholly  dependent  on  the  obstacles 
which  it  overcomes.  It  is  supremely  good  in  God,  in  Whom 
it  is  conceived  as  free  from  all  obstacles. 


MORALITY 


3i 


of  trust ;  he  is  also  less  worthy  of  respect.  And  thus  the 
absence  of  amiable  emotion  and  even  the  presence  of 
unamiable  emotion — as  tending  to  exhibit  and  develop 
the  high  principle  which  overcomes  it — may  acquire  a 
positive  moral  value.  If,  then,  we  fancy  that  we  are 
here  in  disagreement  with  Kant,  this  probably  arises  from 
a  misunderstanding  of  his  position.  For  our  commonest 
moral  judgments  are  always  in  essential  agreement  with 
his  view.  High  principle  is  thought  worthy  of  respect 
even  when  associated  with  the  coldest  feelings,  whereas 
warm  feelings  are  comparatively  worthless  in  a  character 
devoid  of  principle. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  ‘  IMPERATIVE  '  OF  DUTY 


EEPING  in  mind  these  contrasts  between  Duty  and 


V.  Interest  and  Duty  and  Sentiment,  we  may  now 
pass  to  the  elements  in  Kant’s  teaching  which  are  more 
distinctive.  These  also,  as  he  holds,  are  in  essential 
agreement  with  popular  morality,  and  are  its  legitimate 
development. 

Among  motives  of  action — he  maintains — it  is  Duty 
alone  in  contrast  with  all  appetites  and  inclinations, 
which  is  an  object  of  'reverence'.  He  defines  Duty  as 
the  '  necessity  of  an  action  from  reverence  for  the  Moral 
Law  ’.  Our  appetites  may  be  approved,  but  not  revered  : 
‘  for  inclination,  my  own  or  another’s,  I  can  feel  no 
reverence  ’.  1  Duty,  it  has  been  well  said,  commands 
itself :  pleasure  recommends  itself.  It  is  the  command 
alone,  then,  which  enforces  respect.  '  The  awe  of  duty 
has  nothing  in  common  with  the  enjoyment  of  life.’  2 

Again,  Kant  contrasts  Happiness  which  is  an  ‘  Ideal  of 
the  imagination  ’  (. Eiribildimgskrafty  with  Duty  which  is  an 

1  Grundlegung,  p.  400. 

2  See  Critik  der  Practischen  Vernunft.  Sechste  A  uflage,  p.  129, 
chap.Viii. 

3  Grundlegung,  p.  418. 


32 


DUTY 


33 


ideal  of  the  reason.  Reason — he  teaches — is  given,  not  to 
secure  our  happiness,  but  rather  to  make  possible  that 
kind  of  conduct  which  alone  makes  us  worthy  to  be 
happy.1  If  reason  had  been  intended  by  Nature  as  a 
mere  means  to  happiness,  then  Nature,  he  argues,  has 
chosen  her  means  badly.  Those  whose  aim  is  personal 
happiness  often  find  that  reason  is  rather  an  embarrass¬ 
ment  in  this  pursuit  than  a  help  ;  and  it  seems  obvious 
that  our  happiness  might  have  been  far  more  safely  pro¬ 
vided  for  us  by  the  aid  of  an  implanted  instinct.2  Thus 
the  consideration  of  our  nature  suggests  that  we  are 
intended  for  some  worthier  end.  And  even  if  we  utterly 
refuse  to  recognize  in  Nature  any  evidence  of  Purpose,  and 
therefore  reject  the  assumption  that  natural  means  are 
well  chosen,  the  argument  still  retains  its  value.  It 
draws  attention  to  the  wide  distinction  between  Duty 
and  Happiness  in  their  character  as  motives.  Reason 
in  delivering  itself  of  this  absolutely  universal  Law  of 
Duty  demands  an  obedience  which  is  disinterested.  It 
offers  no  enticement,  and  promises  no  reward  ;  it  uses 
moreover,  no  threat ;  but  the  mere  thought  of  Duty  extorts 
reverence  even  if  not  always  obedience,  simply  by  holding 
up  its  naked  law  in  the  soul.3  And  if  considerations  of 
happiness — f  empirical  ’  motives4 — are  allowed  to  operate 
on  our  conduct,  the  value  of  our  performance  of  duty 
is  positively  impaired. 

1  On  the  relation  of  this  statement  to  the  medieval  doctrine 
of  ‘Merit’,  see  below,  pp.  75,  105,  122. 

2  P-  395- 

3  Critik  der  Practischen  Vernunft.  Sechste  Auflage,  p.  125. 
See  Semple’s  translation  (T.  and  T.  Clark,  1871)  p.  127,  and  cf. 
note  below. 

4  Grundlegung,  pp.  41 1,  426. 

D 


34 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Again,  the  Moral  Law  is  represented  as  a  ‘  command  ’ 
or  ‘  imperative  and  as  the  only  imperative  which  can  be 
‘  categorical  ’ — that  is  ‘  unconditional \1  Rules  of  skill 
and  maxims  of  prudence  are  likewise  imperatives,  but 
conditional.  ‘  If  you  wish  to  be  beloved,  do  not  make 
vexatious  demands  upon  your  friends/  ‘  If  you  wish  for 
a  long  life,  do  not  neglect  to  take  exercise/  All  such 
rules  are  conditional,  since — thus  conceived — they  have 
weight  with  us  so  long  only  as  we  set  before  ourselves 
these  particular  objects  of  desire.  ‘  Act  on  all  occasions 
like  a  man  of  honour  ’  is,  on  the  other  hand,  an  uncon¬ 
ditional  command.  From  such  commands  we  cannot 
detach  ourselves  ( los  sein).2  Even  in  our  violation  of  the 
law,  the  law  asserts  itself :  it  takes  its  revenge  in  the  form 
of  self-accusation — in  humbling  our  self-esteem.  And  it 
is  just  this  consciousness  that  Duty  is  a  command  from 
whose  authority  we  cannot  escape,  which  gives  Duty^  its 
distinctive  character  and  meaning. 

Thus  it  is  that  obedience  to  the  Moral  Law  produces  a 
satisfaction  different  from  all  others  in  kind.  It  is  this 
obedience  only  which  entitles  me  to  the  respect  of  other 
men,  or  to  my  own  self-respect ;  it  is  this  alone  which  gives 
inward  peace.  In  the  case  of  the  man — says  Kant — whose 
conscience  sustains  him  in  the  extremest  miseries,  because 
it  tells  him  that  he  declined  to  avoid  these  miseries  by 
bartering  his  duty,  this  consolation  is  not  happiness — it 
is  nothing  like  happiness, — and  no  one  would  wish  to  be  so 
situated,  nor  for  a  life  in  such  conjunctures.  But  so  long 
as  man  lives,  he  cannot  endure  to  be  in  his  own  eyes 
unworthy  of  life.  This  inward  peace  is  an  effect  of  rever¬ 
ence  for  something  quite  different  from  life,  in  comparison 
1  P.  432,  &c.  2  P.  420. 


DUTY  35 

and  contrast  with  which,  life  with  all  its  amenities  has  no 
value.1 

Again,  Kant  insists  that  morality  is  essentially  independ¬ 
ent  of  examples.  Examples  serve  as  an  encouragement  : 
they  show  the  practicability \[Thunlichkeit)  of  that  which  the 
law  enjoins  :  they  exhibit  the  law  in  clear  form  before  our 
eyes  ;2  but  it  is  not  upon  these  that  the  law  itself  is  founded. 
'  Even  the  Holy  One  of  the  Gospels  must  first  be  compared 
with  our  ideal  of  moral  perfection  before  we  can  recognize 
Him  for  what  He  is.’  3  Such  moral  teaching  is  therefore 
peculiarly  proof  against  the  scepticism  which  rests  on 
cynical  doubts  of  human  goodness. 

And  why  is  morality  thus  independent  of  examples  ? 
Because  our  reason  is  'self-legislative  ’  4  and  produces  the 
Moral  Law  spontaneously  by  its  own  act.  If  its  moral 
judgments  were  forced  upon  it  from  outside — if  they  were 
due  to  the  pressure  of  passions  or  other  external  causes — 
reason  would  not,  as  it  does,  regard  its  judgments  as  its 
own.5  The  Moral  Law  is  a  law  for  every  rational  being 
as  such.6  Man,  as  subject  to  the  legislation  of  his  reason 
only,  and  not  a  slave  to  physical  motives,  is  free.  'A 
free  will  and  a  will  subject  to  Moral  Laws  is  one  and  the 
same  thing  .’7  Such  freedom  is,  in  Kant’s  phrase,  ‘  Auto¬ 
nomy’.  Man,  as  a  rational  being  beset  with  passions, 
stands  to  the  Moral  Law  at  once  as  its  author  and  its 
subject.8 

1  Semple’s  translation — which  is  too  often  a  mere  paraphrase 
— seems  here  to  express  with  great  eloquence  the  very  essence 
of  the  Kantian  thought. 

2  P.  409.  3  P.  408. 

4  P.  440.  3  P.  448.  6  P. 

7  P.  447.  8  P.  440. 


447- 


36  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Again,  Kant  argues  that  since  moraiity  takes  no  account 
of  consequences,  but  bids  us  do  our  duty,  come  what 
may, — since  we  are  thus  deprived  of  the  power  to  base 
moral  obedience  upon  any  material  motives — we  are  there¬ 
fore  left  with  no  other  ground  for  morality  but  the  pure 
‘  form  ’  of  the  Moral  Law  itself.1  This  pure  ‘  form  ’  he 
expresses  in  the  phrase,  ‘  So  act  that  thou  canst  will  that 
thy  maxim  should  be  regarded  as  law  universal.' 2  This 
rule — he  maintains — can  be,  and  is,  used  by  the  simplest 
understanding  ;  and  we  shall  find,  that  in  our  transgres¬ 
sions  we  never,  as  a  fact,  will  that  our  evil  maxims  shall 
be  regarded  as  law  universal.  We  merely  allow  an 
occasional  exception  in  our  own  favour  :  abasing  the 
absolute  ‘  universality  ’  of  the  Moral  Law,3  into  a  mere 
*  generality  ’  which  is  to  hold  good  always  except  just  this 
once. 


1  Pp.  400,  402,  426,  427,^436. 
3  P.  424. 


2  Pp.  402,  421,  &c. 


CHAPTER  VI 


GUILT 

IF  we  now  ask  how  far  Kant  has  strengthened  the  case 
of  the  preacher  who  seeks  to  produce  ‘  conviction  of 
sin  ’,  the  answer  is  clear.  He  has  done  this  in  the  only 
way  1  in  which  it  can  be  done  at  all — namely,  by  describ¬ 
ing  moral  consciousness  in  a  manner  which  may  be  seen 
to  be  correct  by  those  who  possess  it.  False  moral 
philosophy  arises  for  the  most  part  from  simple  failure 
to  recognize  the  character  of  the  principles  which  we 
ourselves  are  employing  daily. 

x4s  a  measure  of  the  debt  owed  to  Kant  by  the  modern 
world,  we  might  cite  many  passages  of  pre-Kantian 
literature.  Take,  as  an  example,  Mosheim’s  criticism  of 
Lord  Shaftesbury.  ‘  He  has  perniciously  endeavoured  * 
says  the  historian2 '  to  destroy  the  influence  and  efficiency 
of  some  of  the  motives  that  are  proposed  in  the  Holy 
Scripture  to  render  men  virtuous,  by  representing  these 
motives  as  mercenary,  and  even  turning  them  into  ridi¬ 
cule.’  ‘  He  substitutes  in  their  place  the  intrinsic  excel¬ 
lence  and  beauty  of  virtue,  as  the  great  source  of  moral 
obligation,  and  the  true  incentive  to  virtuous  deeds. 
But  however  alluring  this  sublime  scheme  of  morals  may 
1  Cf.  Chap.  ii. 

2  Vol.  iii.  (Cent.  xvii.  Sec.  i.  xxii). 

37 


38  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


appear  to  certain  minds  of  a  refined,  elegant  and  ingenuous 
turn,  it  is  certainty  little  adapted  to  the  taste,  the  compre¬ 
hension  and  the  character  of  the  multitude.  Take  away 
from  the  lower  orders  of  mankind  the  prospect  of  reward 
and  punishment  that  leads  them  to  virtue  and  obedience 
by  the  powerful  suggestions  of  hope  and  fear,  and  the 
great  supports  of  virtue,  and  the  most  effectual  motives  to 
the  pursuit  of  it,  will  then  be  removed  with  respect  to 
them/ 

To  Mosheim,  therefore,  the  choice  of  moral  motives 
appears  to  lie  beween  two  only — self-interest  and  exalted 
sentiment.  The  latter,  he  thinks,  may  serve  well  enough 
for  philosophic  noblemen,  but  the  former  alone  can  be 
effective  with  the  vulgar.  And  thus  he  gives  a  super¬ 
ficial  air  of  commonsense  and  hard-headed  wisdom  to  a 
judgment  which  will  immediately  be  perceived  to  be  false 
by  any  one  who  knows  the  ‘  lower  orders  of  mankind  ’  by 
personal  acquaintance.  Kant  has  taught  the  world  once 
for  all  to  distinguish  a  third  type  of  motive,  different  both 
from  sentiment  and  self-interest,  and  has  enabled  us  to 
recognize  that  this  highest  kind  of  motive  is  often  present 
in  the  most  simple  and  unlearned  persons. 

In  the  same  way  Kant  clears  up  the  common  confusion 
between  morality  and  ‘  appetite’.  1 2  As  Touchstone  in 
As  you  like  it 2  compares  the  love-story  of  Rosalind  with 
the  passions  of  the  cat ;  so  the  moral  sceptic  compares 
morality  to  the  child’s  fear  of  the  dark.  Both  of  these 

1  Two  distinct  positions  may  be  maintained  :  ( a )  ‘  that  mor¬ 
ality  is  only  a  form  of  appetite,  e.g.  a  kind  of  fear  ’  ;  (b)  that 
though  morality  and  appetite  are  distinct,  the  evolutionary 
origin  of  morality  deprives  it  of  authority.’ 

2  Act  iii. 


GUILT 


39 


latter — he  argues — have  ^continued  to  exist,  because  both 
have  been  useful  to  the  race.  The  comparison  is  not 
without  its  value.  Yet,  after  all,  as  surely  as  the  feelings 
of  Rosalind  differ  from  the  feelings  of  the  animal  (for  if 
they  were  really  identical  where  would  be  the  amusement 
in  comparing  them  ?),  so  also  morality  differs  from  child¬ 
ish  fear  and  from  every  other  selfish  ‘  appetite  ’  in  our 
nature  :  and  it  is  not  on  its  history  but  on  its  character — 
not  on  whence  it  came  but  on  what  it  is — that  the 
authority  of  the  Moral  Law  depends. 

Thus  at  all  points  the  Kantian  lesson  is  essentially  the 
same.  His  presentation  of  morality  as  ‘  rational  not 
on  the  ground  that  it  conduces  to  self-interest,  but  on  the 
opposite  ground  that  it  is  founded  on  principles  superior 
to  all  private  considerations,  has  served  to  bring  into 
clearer  light  the  true  character 1  not  only  of  morality  but 
of  reason.  To  refute  the  paradox  that  morality  is  an 
illusion  we  need  only  appeal  to  the  personal  convictions  of 
the  very  man  who  asserts  it.  Is  there  no  law — we  may 
ask  him — whose  absolute  authority  you  yourself  own  ? 
Could  you  betray  a  friend  without  compunction  ?  Do 
you  regard  this  feeling  of  compunction  as  merely  an  in- 

1  It  is  true  that  his  manner  of  distinguishing  the  moral  motive 
from  all  others  is  associated  with  the  weakest  part  of  his  system. 
The  theory  that  we  cannot  know  things  ‘  as  they  are  in  them¬ 
selves,  but  only  as  they  appear  to  us,5  is  a  common  piece  of 
popular  metaphysic.  This  common  view  is  developed  by  Kant 
in  systematic  form.  He  teaches  that  the  *  self  ’  which  I  know 
in  experience  as  living  in  time,  and  acted  upon  by  material 
motives,  is  not  my  true  self.  This  true  ‘  self  ’  is  a  mysterious 
entity  which  belongs  to  a  '  supersensible  ’  world  ;  it  is  a  being 
of  which  I  can  know  nothing  but  that  its  law  conforms  to 
principles  of  pure  reason.  Grundlegung,  457,  458. 


4o 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


stinct  useful  in  the  evolution  of  your  race,  or  do  you 
regard  it  as  a  sentiment  in  itself  correct— -so  that  the  act 
of  treachery  is  in  truth  as  base  as  the  feeling  of  compunc¬ 
tion  represents  it  to  be  ?  If  you  admit — as  of  course  every 
rational  person,  whatever  it  may  amuse  him  to  say  when 
he  is  engaged  in  an  argument,  does  admit  in  his  heart — 
that  fidelity  to  one's  friends  is  a  principle  which  we  are 
bound  to  observe  even  when  it  conflicts  with  all  our 
inclinations  and  interests,  what  is  this  but  to  allow  that 
Duty  is  just  such  an  unconditionally  binding  Imperative 
as  Kant  maintains  ? 


*  Yet  after  all,'  it  may  be  said,  ‘  this  sense  of  absolute 
obligation  and  of  consequent  guilt  is  not  universally 
diffused  :  it  cannot  therefore  be  made  the  sole  basis  of 
religious  doctrine/ 

The  ‘  higher  man  5  of  to-day,  says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  '  is 
not  worrying  himself  about  his  sins  at  all/  These  words 
no  doubt  contain  an  element  of  truth.  It  is  true  that  we 
do  not,  as  Bunyan  did,  go  home  weeping  after  a  sermon. 
Yet  if  future  ages  are  led  to  conclude  from  such  contem¬ 
porary  testimonies  that  we  are  a  peculiarly  light-hearted 
generation  it  is  not  clear  that  they  will  be  wholly  right. 
Certainly  there  is  in  our  literature  little  evidence  for  this 
conclusion.  Is  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  himself,  indeed,  a  con¬ 
spicuously  light-hearted  phenomenon  ?  Surely  no  genera¬ 
tion  has  been  so  sensitive  as  ours  is  to  the  faults  of  its 
social  system.  If  we  are  less  occupied  than  our  fathers 
in  explicit  confession  of  personal  misdeeds,  still  we  are  much 
in  the  habit  of  confessing,  like  Daniel,1  ‘  the  sins  of  our 


1  Daniel  ix.  20. 


GUILT 


4i 

people’,  admitting  at  the  same  time  our  own  share  in  the 
common  responsibility. 

We  are  told  sometimes  that  the  sense  of  individual 
guilt  which  belonged  to  Puritanism  has  been  replaced, 
among  '  the  higher  men  of  to-day  ’  by  a  deeper  conception. 
‘  The  greatest  guilt  of  man  ’  says  Schopenhauer  quoting 
Calderon,1  ‘  is  that  he  was  born.’  The  resemblance  of 
this  doctrine  to  the  Pauline,  Augustinian,  and  Lutheran, 
teaching  that  ‘  works  do  not  justify  ’  has  been  pointed  out 
by  Schopenhauer  himself.  Yet  the  difference  is  even 
greater  than  the  resemblance.  Schopenhauer’s  concep¬ 
tion  of  guilt,  though  in  a  sense  severer  than  St.  Paul's,  is 
at  the  same  time  less  effective  as  a  practical  incentive  to 
conduct  :  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Schopenhauer  has 
had  great  influence  on  many  of  our  most  popular  writers,  it 
is  still  true  that  in  England  at  least  the  more  practical 
conception  of  guilt  is  almost  everywhere  dominant. 


But  we  need  not  confine  ourselves  to  one  country  or  one 
circle  of  society.  The  same  general  sense  of  right  and 
wrong — or  the  capacity  for  it — may  be  found  under  the 
most  varied  social  conditions.  The  late  Sir  Alfred  Lyall 
used  to  tell  the  story  of  the  murder  of  a  blind  man  in  an 
Indian  bazaar  by  means  of  a  present  of  poisoned  fruit. 
The  community  to  which  the  murderer  belonged  was 
inured  to  crime,  and  its  moral  sense  was  peculiarly  obtuse  : 
yet  this  act  aroused  its  most  intense  indignation.  This  is 
no  solitary  case.  The  truth  is  that,  though  in  low  com¬ 
munities  it  may  need  a  very  gross  example  to  stir  the 
faculty  of  moral  condemnation  to  activity,  yet  when 
their  moral  indignation  is  once  aroused  it  is  based  upon 

1  World  as  Will  and  Idea,  p.  328,  Vol.  i. 


42 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


ultimate  moral  principles  which  are  in  harmony  with 
our  own.  We  find,  when  we  get  deep  enough  down,  the 
same  categorical  imperative  issuing  the  same  universal 
command.  If  one  has  once  perceived  that  it  is  wrong 
to  take  advantage  of  a  man’s  infirmity  tto  do  him  an 
injury,  one  has  discovered  the  principle  on  which  all  the 
law  and  the  prophets  hang.  The  denizen  of  the  Indian 
bazaar  differs  from  Kant  in  the  slowness  with  which  this 
principle  dawns  upon  his  mind,  and  in  his  capacity  for 
applying  it,  but  not  in  his  perception  of  its  content. 


Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  we  could  produce  an 
individual,  or  a  race,  destitute  of  moral  conceptions  and  of 
the  capacity  for  framing  them.  Even  this  evidence  would 
not  suffice  to  prove  that  we  are  wrong  in  seeking  to  make 
moral  consciousness  the  basis  of  our  theology.  The 
religious  teacher  is  primarily  concerned  with  the  moral 
consciousness  of  his  immediate  hearer,  and  not  with  that 
of  the  lower  types  of  humanity.  The  reader  who  on 
mature  reflection  is  convinced  that  he  possesses  no  moral 
consciousness  at  all  can  hardly  be  invited  to  pursue  the 
present  argument.  But  no  such  reader  will  be  found. 
Sophistical  methods  of  explaining  morality  away  exist 
in  plenty.  Against  these  there  lies  ready  to  hand  an 
inexhaustible  armoury  of  weapons  in  the  Dialogues  of 
Plato.  It  is,  however,  needless  to  spend  much  time 
in  the  solution  of  sophistical  puzzles,  since  very  few  men, 
even  in  their  first  youth,  are  seriously  deceived  by  them. 
Further,  unless  a  man  will  seriously  affirm  that  he  has 
never  done  anything  of  which  he  is  or  ought  to  be  ashamed, 
he  must  admit  that  he  stands,  just  as  Kant  alleges,  under  a 
Law  which  humbles  him.  Between  such  an  admission  and 


GUILT 


43 


an  effective  conviction  of  sin  there  is  a  wide  difference. 
But  no  candid  man  can  refuse  to  admit  the  premises  on 
which  the  conviction  of  sin  is  based. 

The  main  obstacle,  in  fact,  which  the  Christian  teacher 
has  to  meet  is  not  sophistry  but  thoughtlessness.  Kant 
has  taken  some  of  our  most  familiar  conceptions — those 
which  are  expressed  by  the  words  '  good  ’,  ‘  ought  ’, 
'  guilt  ’,  '  Law  ‘  reverence  ’ — and  among  them  he  has 
established  a  strict  connexion.  By  defining  the  thought 
which  is  contained  in  these  terms — terms  which  have  a 
clear  and  an  absolute  meaning  for  normal  people,  what¬ 
ever  may  be  the  case  with  certain  savage  races — Kant  has 
shown  our  subjection  to  a  law  under  which  those  who  know 
it  are  all  bound,  and  are  all  guilty. 


CHAPTER  VII 

DELIVERANCE  FROM  GUILT 

T  li  CE  see,  then,  how  the  preacher  who  relies  on  moral 
V  V  arguments,  without  any  reference  to  the  super¬ 
natural,  may  lead  his  hearers  to  conviction  of  sin.  But 
can  he  lead  them  from  knowledge  of  sin  to  knowledge 
of  justification  ?  He  has  ground  sufficient  to  establish 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  condemnation  ;  can  he  estab¬ 
lish  the  Christian  doctrine  of  salvation  also  ? 

The  sense  of  sin  in  its  general  form  is  in  no  way 
peculiar  to  Christianity.  Indeed  it  is  from  the  sense  that 
Man  and  the  Universe  are  out  of  joint,  and  that  some 
kind  of  reconciliation  must  be  attempted  between  them,' 
that  religion  seems,  for  the  most  part,  to  arise.1  The 
distinction  between  religions  is  found  in  the  methods 
by  which  this  attempt  is  made,  and  thus  to  contrast 
the  Christian  method  of  Salvation  with  other  methods 
is  among  the  foremost  tasks  of  the  apologist. 

The  two  methods  which  alone  can  be  considered  as 
serious  rivals  to  Christianity,  are  the  method  of  Asceticism 
and  the  method  of  Good  Works.  From  both  Christianity 
must  be  sharply  distinguished  ;  for  though  self-abnega¬ 
tion  and  a  virtuous  life  have  a  high  place  in  Christianity 


1  This  phrase  covers  the  development  of  early  religions  as 
described  e.g.  in  Mr.  Frazer’s  Golden  Bough. 

44 


DELIVERANCE  FROM  GUILT 


45 

itself,  it  is  essentially  different  from  any  system  which 
puts  its  sole  or  main  trust  in  either. 


Of  the  ascetic  method  the  noblest  representative  is 
Buddhism.  On  this  subject  the  Western  student  must 
always  speak  with  caution.  It  is  inconceivable  that  any 
Western  scholar  can  know  an  Oriental  language  as 
thoroughly  as  the  majority  of  educated  Europeans  know 
Latin.  And  thus  the  mutual  misunderstandings  between 
Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants — where  the  difficulties 
of  comprehension  are  comparatively  small — should  serve 
as  a  warning  against  too  implicit  confidence  in  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  Western  Orientalists.  With  regard,  however,  to 
the  main  outline  of  Eastern  beliefs,  we  may  assume  that 
our  teachers  have  not  wholly  misled  us. 

Buddhism  has  in  many  respects  a  close  resemblance  to 
Christianity.  It  resembles  it  in  its  hostility  towards 
sharp  lines  of  social  cleavage,  in  requiring  self-denial,  in 
inculcating  charity  and  meek  behaviour  towards  all  man¬ 
kind,  in  condemning  the  method  which  seeks  salvation 
through  external  works,1  and  in  condemning  even  the 
more  violent  forms  of  asceticism  itself.  As  in  Christianity 
and  in  Stoicism,  so  in  Buddhism  also,  man  seeks  freedom 
not  by  subduing  the  world  to  his  will,  but  primarily  by 
changing  the  attitude  of  his  will  toward  the  world. 

1  Buddhism  :  by  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  p.  no,  note.  We  may 
compare  the  error  of  the  modern  Buddhist  who  classes  Christi¬ 
anity  with  the  religions  which  depend  on  ‘  works’,  with  that 
of  Tanquerey  and  other  Roman  Catholic  writers  who  class  Kani 
with  the  Stoics.  Both  errors  are  instructive.  Tanquerey  cannot 
afford  to  understand  Kant  :  just  as  the  Buddhist  cannot  afford 
to  understand  Christianity.  To  understand  the  higher  system 
is  to  accept  it. 


46  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


But  this  superficial  resemblance  to  Christianity  masks 
a  deep  internal  difference.  It  is  the  glory  of  Christianity 
that  the  Salvation  it  offers  is  universal,  excluding  neither 
the  morally  degraded  nor  the  intellectually  weak.  ‘  There¬ 
fore  it  is  of  faith  ’  says  St.  Paul  ‘  that  it  might  be  by 
grace  ;  to  the  end  the  promise  might  be  sure  to  all 
the  seed’.1  It  is  the  boast  of  the  Gospel  that  it  addresses 
itself  to  the  common  man  living  under  common  conditions ; 
that  it  seeks  not  to  take  him  out  of  the  world  but  to  keep 
him  from  the  evil  2 ;  that  it  offers  immediate  reconcilia¬ 
tion  to  the  man  newly  rescued  from  gross  sin  ;  and 
further  that  the  humblest  intelligence  is  within  the  scope 
of  its  ministrations.  A  Christian  Bishop  has  recently 
administered  the  rite  of  Confirmation  to  an  idiot,  assured 
that  the  man  understood  Repentance  and  Obedience,  and 
reconciliation  thereby  with  God  ;  and  from  the  time  of  the 
Thief  on  the  Cross  to  our  own,  Christianity  has  offered 
instantaneous  pardon  to  the  penitent.  Buddhism,  on 
the  other  hand,  seeks  gradually  to  liberate  and  purify  the 
soul  by  methods  which  only  few  can  employ  3 — by  slow 
and  gradual  ascent  through  moderate  asceticism  and  in¬ 
tellectual  contemplation,  the  former  beyond  the  reach 
of  all  but  celibate  persons,  the  latter  closed  to  the  man 
of  low  mental  endowment.  '  He  that  is  dead  is  freed  from 
sin’4.  On  this  subject  the  Christian  and  the  Oriental  may 
hold  similar  language  ;  but  the  typically  Oriental  religions 
— with  greater  or  less  severity — seek  a  living  death,  in 
which  all  the  passions  shall  be  stilled,  while  Christianity 
is  consistent  with  the  life  of  the  plain  man  living  in  the 
world. 

1  Rom.  iv.  1 6.  2  St.  John  xvii.  15. 

3  See  especially  Rhys  Davids,  Buddhism,  chaps,  iv.  and  v. 

4  Rom.  vi.  7. 


DELIVERANCE  FROM  GUILT 


47 


This  difference  of  method  results  from  a  profound  differ¬ 
ence  of  conception.  It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated 
that  while  the  Christian  glories  in  the  Cross  and  practises 
self-denial  with  enthusiasm,  Christian  self-abnegation  is 
conceived  essentially  as  the  sacrifice  of  that  which  is  in 
itself  good.  It  is  compared  with  the  plucking  out  of  the 
eye  to  save  the  whole  body.1  The  Oriental,  on  the  other 
hand,  dies  to  the  world,  because  he  takes  it  to  be  evil — a 
world  of  vanity  and  illusion. 

How  then  is  the  ascetic  method  to  be  regarded  ?  Can 
we  seriously  look  upon  it  as  a  means  by  which  we  our¬ 
selves  can  gain  deliverance  from  guilt  ?  That  the  life 
of  voluntary  poverty  is  the  true  vocation  of  some  indivi¬ 
duals  is  a  truth  more  clearly  perceived  in  Christendom 
at  this  moment  than  at  any  other  period  since  the  close 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Again  to  ‘  keep  under  the  body  and 
bring  it  into  subjection  ’  is  a  duty,  not  for  some  only,  but 
for  all.  In  Christendom,  however,  asceticism  holds  a 
place  which,  though  important,  is  subordinate.  The  as¬ 
cetic  and  contemplative  life,  as  such,  can  never  be  accepted 
by  the  Christian  as  equivalent  to  the  Way  of  Salvation. 
It  is  true  that  upon  many  Western  minds  the  religions  of 
the  East  exercise  at  first  contact  a  powerful  attraction, 
and  it  is  to  their  ascetic  practices  that  this  attraction  is 
due.  While  the  Christian  saint  professes  death  to  the 
world,  the  Eastern  ascetic  seems  to  surpass  him  in  the 
thoroughness  of  his  self-surrender.  Yet  in  most  cases  this 
attraction  is  merely  romantic.  The  European  does  not 
in  fact  become  an  Oriental  ascetic.  And  if  for  a  time 
he  seeks  peace  by  persuading  himself  of  the  worthlessness 
of  the  things  of  sense,  this  is  a  phase  which  passes  away 

1  St.  Matt,  v.  29. 


48  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


with  youth.1  To  suggest  that  the  revolt  of  the  European 
from  asceticism  proceeds  from  worldliness  or  lack  of 
courage  would  be  palpably  unjust.  The  European  races 
are  indeed  conspicuous  for  their  power  to  overcome  ob¬ 
stacles.  Our  refusal  of  the  ascetic  method  arises  not  from 
our  inferiority  to  the  Oriental  in  strength  of  character, 
but  from  our  superiority  in  moral  perception.  If  Chris¬ 
tianity  declared  ‘  all  earthly  blessings  to  be  valueless  ’ 
and  pointed  exclusively  ‘  to  a  world-shunning  and  contem¬ 
plative  life’,  it  would  be  ‘  an  offence  to  all  energetic,  nay, 
ultimately  to  all  true  natures  ;  for  such  natures  are  cer¬ 
tain  that  our  faculties  are  given  us  to  be  employed,  and 
that  the  earth  is  assigned  to  us  to  be  cultivated  and 
subdued’.2  We  are  in  fact  convinced  that  eating  and 
drinking,  trade,  learning,  marriage  and  family  life,  are 
not  evil  but  good — that  it  is  God  who  thus  ‘  fills  our 
hearts  with  food  and  gladness’.3  We  have  all  retained 
enough  at  least  of  the  Optimism  of  Christianity  to  recog¬ 
nize  that  a  total  extinction  of  sensation,  even  if  it  were 
possible,  would  be  wrong.  And  thus  the  European  who 
professes  that  the  Oriental  and  not  the  Christian  method 
of  salvation  is  the  true  one,  is  seldom  serious.  Pure  asceti¬ 
cism,  as  St.  Paul  perceived  long  ago,  is  ‘  of  no  value 
against  the  indulgence  of  the  flesh’.4  Error  can  be  ex¬ 
pelled  only  by  truth  :  and  the  maxims  of  an  ultimate 

1  *  The  Enchiridion  of  Epictetus  I  had  ever  with  me,  often 
as  my  sole  rational  companion  ;  and  I  regret  to  mention  that 
the  nourishment  it  yielded  was  trifling.’  Sartor  Resartus,  bk. 
ii.  chap.  vi.  Compare  the  passages  about  the  De  Imitations 
Christi  in  the  Mill  on  the  Floss. 

2  Harnack,  What  is  Christianity  ?,  pp.  80-81. 

3  Acts  xiv.  17. 

4  Col.  ii.  23 — (if  this  is  the  right  rendering  of  an  obscure 
passage). 


DELIVERANCE  FROM  GUILT 


49 


asceticism  are  as  false  as  those  of  an  unrestrained  self- 
indulgence. 


Buddhism  then, — understood  as  a  religion  of  asceticism 
in  this  sense — cannot  be  accepted  as  a  serious  alternative 
to  Christianity.  But  if  deliverance  from  guilt  is  not  to 
be  sought  by  Oriental  asceticism,  can  it  be  found  in  the 
method  of  ‘  Good  Works’  ? 

The  phrase  suggests  to  us  at  once  the  Jewish  Law. 
But  though  it  is  in  Pharisaic  Judaism  that  this  method 
has  found  its  most  complete  embodiment,  it  has  been  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  Jew. 

The  method  of  ‘  Good  Works  ’  is  indeed  the  obvious 
and  natural  method  by  which  justification  is  sought. 
It  consists  in  setting  before  oneself  some  definite  standard 
of  behaviour,  and  expecting  by  strict  conformity  thereto 
to  attain  satisfaction  and  peace  of  mind.  It  is  a  method, 
however,  which  inevitably  leads  either  to  disappointment 
or  to  self-righteousness  :  to  disappointment  in  the  minds 
of  the  honest  and  thoughtful,  to  self-righteousness  in 
those  who  are  contented  with  defective  self-knowledge 
and  a  low  and  arbitrary  standard.  The  man  who  has 
fulfilled  all  his  more  obvious  duties  in  business  and  in 
family  life,  will  sometimes  say  upon  his  deathbed  that 
he  knows  no  reason  why  he  should  fear  to  meet  his  Judge. 1 
Yet  will  he  assert  upon  these  grounds  that  he  has  a 
peace  '  which  passes  all  understanding  ’  ?  It  is  probable 
that  no  such  claim  has  ever  been  made.  Even  the  sym- 

1  The  question  '  Are  you  then  one  of  the  ninety  and  nine  just 
persons  mentioned  in  Scripture  who  need  no  repentance  ?  ’  will 
sometimes  bring  men  of  this  type  to  their  senses. 


E 


50 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


pathetic  onlooker  who  is  indignant  that  the  Christian 
Minister  should  disturb  the  dying  man’s  last  moments  by 
any  hint  of  doubt,  proves  by  his  very  indignation  that 
he  distinguishes  this  negatively  easy  conscience  from  the 
assured  peace  of  the  Christian.  That  Christian  assurance 
is  not  easily  disturbed  is  recognized  even  by  those  who 
regard  it  as  an  illusion.  For  the  confidence,  on  the  other 
hand,  which  is  based  on  one’s  own  blameless  past,  no 
one  at  heart  feels  much  respect.  Good  humour  and 
commercial  honesty  are  high  virtues  :  but  they  do  not 
constitute  the  whole  duty  of  man. 

Compared  with  the  Pharisaism  of  common  life,  the 
Pharisaism  of  the  Pharisee  stands  high  in  the  moral  scale. 
Pharisaic  Judaism — of  which  the  essence  is  an  ordering  of 
conduct  by  detailed  regulations — was,  at  least,  a  serious 
and  persistent  effort  after  righteous  living.  If  it  has 
not  the  romantic  charm  of  the  systems  of  the  Stoic  and 
the  Buddhist,  it  has  the  solid  merit  of  a  greater  effective¬ 
ness.  Yet  the  writings  of  St.  Paul  show  plainly  that  its 
success  was  but  partial.  And  thus  the  most  conspicuous 
of  those  who  have  given  the  system  a  fair  trial  becomes 
the  classic  example  of  its  ultimate  failure. 

We  have,  moreover,  learned  St.  Paul’s  lesson  to  very 
little  purpose  if  we  think  that  the  failure  of  the  legal 
method  depended  upon  the  peculiar  contents  of  the  Law 
of  Moses.  Just  as  there  were  those  who  found  in  the  Law 
something  very  like  a  Gospel,1  so  there  are  always  those 
who  living  under  the  Gospel  use  it  as  a  Law.  f  There  are 
two  methods  of  seeking  holiness  ’  said  a  modern  preacher, 
‘  the  inward  and  the  outward.  May  not  the  latter  be  as 


1  Mic.  vi.  8  ;  2  Chron.vi.  14-42  ;  Jer.  xxxi.  31-34. 


DELIVERANCE  FROM  GUILT 


5* 


effective  as  the  former  ?  Could  not  a  man  become 
saintly  by  acting  at  all  points  like  a  saint  ?  ’  To  that 
question  St.  Paul  has  given  once  for  all  the  negative 
answer.1  Through  a  great  part  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  the  same  word  is  applied  indifferently  to  the 
Law  of  Moses  and  the  true  Law  of  God. 2  The  difference 
between  the  two  did  not  here  need  to  be  insisted  on 
since  it  was  irrelevant  to  the  argument.  The  legal 
method  must  fail,  whether  our  conception  of  the  contents 
of  the  Law  be  Judaic  or  Christian,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  in  either  case  complete  obedience  is  beyond  human 
attainment.  The  Covenant  of  Works  may  be  faultless, 
as  regards  its  contents  ;  its  one  unalterable  defect  is  that 
no  one  can  fulfil  it. 

1  Behind  the  preacher’s  question  there  may  have  lain  a  true 
meaning,  unfortunately  as  the  sentiment  is  expressed.  Cf. 
what  is  said  about  the  Keswick  School  below. 

2  Rom.  chap.  ii.  to  viii. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


CHRISTIANITY 

WHAT  then  is  the  method  which  St.  Paul  proposes 
to  substitute  ?  Against  the  method  of  ‘  works  ’ 
he  sets  the  method  of  ‘  faith  ’ — spoken  of  in  many  contexts 
as  faith  ‘  in  Christ5,  and  sometimes  also  in  special  relation 
to  Christ’s  f  blood 

In  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  f  atonement  by  blood  ’  only 
one  remark  is  needed  here.1  Though  the  doctrine  has 
received  elaborate  development  at  the  hands  of  theolo¬ 
gians  medieval  and  modern,  especially  in  the  Churches 
of  the  Reformation,  the  tendency  at  the  present  moment 
is  in  a  contrary  direction.  St.  Paul’s  references  to  the 
subject  have  led  some  writers  to  infer  that  his  mind  moved 
so  entirely  among  antique  and  barbaric  conceptions  that 
he  cannot  be  regarded  by  the  modern  world  as  a  serious 
ethical  teacher  at  all.  And  even  the  defenders  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Atonement  themselves  have  preferred 
in  recent  times  to  dwell  chiefly  upon  Christ’s  general 
obedience,  and  upon  His  position  as  the  Representative 
of  our  race,  leaving  aside  so  far  as  possible  all  reference  to 
sacrificial  blood.  In  Dr.  Macleod  Campbell’s  chapter  2 
on  the  Death  of  Christ  the  word  ‘  blood  ’  occurs  only 

1  See  chap,  xviii. 

2  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement ,  chap  xiii.  p.  312.  Cf.  p.  292 

(3rd  edition,  1869). 


52 


CHRISTIANITY  53 

once,  and  then  in  a  quotation.  Much  the  same  general 
criticism  is  applicable  to  Dr.  Moberly. 

Now  to  state  a  self-consistent  theory  of  the  relation  of 
the  blood  of  Christ  to  the  sins  of  man  is  certainly  not 
easy.  Yet  it  should  always  be  remembered  how  much 
of  the  attractiveness  of  Christian  preaching  has  been  due 
to  this  very  doctrine  of  the  cleansing  stream — the  paradox 
of  the  robes  made  white  in  blood.1  A  philosophy  based 
upon  experience  must  not  despise  the  testimony  of  the 
emotions.  ‘  Will  all  great  Neptune’s  ocean  wash  this 
blood  clean  from  my  hand  ?  ’  asks  Macbeth.  It  is 
surely  a  significant  fact  that  to  many  a  mind,  in  modern 
no  less  than  in  ancient  times,  the  statement  that  what 
water  is  thus  unable  to  accomplish  may  be  accomplished 
by  the  blood  of  Christ,  conveys  both  a  distinct  meaning 
and  an  emotional  satisfaction  :  and  that  few  passages 
of  Scripture  are  more  often  quoted  than  those  which 
speak  of  Christ  in  sacrificial  language.  We  may  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  surmise,  then,  that  if  Dr.  Moberly  like  Macbeth 
had  committed  a  murder,  or  if  the  youth  of  Dr.  Macleod 
Campbell  had  been  stained  with  the  offences  of  Don 
Juan,  these  two  able  writers  might  have  perceived  that 
even  the  most  unlettered  exponents  of  this  doctrine  may 
sometimes  have  gone  nearer  to  the  heart  of  the  matter 
than  they. 

To  this  subject  we  must  return  below.  For  the  present 
we  are  concerned  primarily,  not  with  the  work  of  Christ, 
but  with  the  mental  attitude  of  the  Christian.  When 
this  mental  attitude  is  spoken  of  as  f  faith’,  in  what  sense 
is  this  term  being  employed? 

This  question  touches  the  most  important  point  in 

1  Rev.  vii.  14. 


54 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Pauline  interpretation  ;  and  in  answering  it  it  is  well 
to  bear  in  mind  that  we  stand  to-day  at  a  critical  period 
in  Pauline  study.  The  tacit  assumption  that  St.  Pauls 
terminology  is  identical  with  that  of  the  Reformers  or 
the  Greek  Fathers,  or  that  his  views  are  precisely  those 
of  the  modern  High  or  Low  Churchman,  is  not  now  so 
commonly  made  as  formerly.  But  there  is  a  danger  lest 
this  error  may  be  replaced  by  the  more  scholarly  but 
hardly  more  reasonable  assumption  that  he  was  the  mere 
child  of  his  time.  That  much  light  is  being,  and  will  be, 
thrown  on  the  New  Testament  writers  by  a  study  of 
their  hitherto  unregarded  contemporaries  is  certain. 
Yet  the  greatest  men  are  always  those  who  are  their  own 
best  commentators.  Such  men  can  be  understood  fully 
only  by  the  student  who  will  give  independent  thought 
to  the  subject  of  which  they  treat.  Is  St.  Paul  then  a 
mere  spinner  of  Rabbinical  cobwebs,  or  is  he  a  genuine 
thinker  dealing  with  the  eternal  facts  of  the  spiritual  life  ? 
If  we  may  assume  the  latter  view— and  those  who  have 
tried  by  St.  Paul's  aid  to  spell  out  the  problems  of  their 
own  inner  life  will  not  doubt  it — it  will  not  be  impossible 
to  arrive  at  some  definite  conclusions  as  to  his  meaning. 


In  the  first  place  it  will  become  clear  that  Pauline 
faith  is  not  a  form  of  intellectual  assent,  but  an  act  of 
will.  ‘  Belief  ’  in  the  Gospel  and  ‘  obedience  *  to  the 
Gospel  are  used  by  him  as  interchangeable  terms.  The 
believer  has  ‘  yielded  himself  as  a  servant  to  obey  ’  God’s 
law.1  If  by  f  justification  through  faith  ’  St.  Paul 
had  intended  ‘  justification  through  orthodoxy,’  he 

1  2  Thess.  i.  8  ;  Rom.  vi.  12-22  ;  Rom.  ii.  8  ;  cf.  1  Pet.  iii. 
1  ;  iv.  17  ;  Heb.  v.  9. 


CHRISTIANITY 


55 


would  in  fact  be  teaching  that  we  are  justified  by  the 
kind  of  faith  which  the  Epistle  of  James  attributes 
to  the  devils.1  To  teach  that  apart  from  good  works 
men  can  be  justified  by  such  faith  as  this — to 
teach  that  so  long  as  a  man  holds  correct  opinions  it 
makes  no  matter  what  he  does — is  to  teach  that  very 
Antinomianism  against  which  St.  Paul  consistently 
protests.2  The  Pauline  faith  is  described  as  'working 
by  love  ’  ;3  that  is,  it  is  such  that  though  distinct  from 
good  works  it  must  inevitably  lead  to  them.  There  is 
only  one  mental  state — namely  an  act  of  will — to  which 
this  description  is  applicable.  No  mere  act  of  appre¬ 
hension  and  no  mere  feeling  leads  inevitably  to  good 
works.  Our  conduct  is  not  under  the  immediate  control 
either  of  our  emotions  or  of  our  beliefs  :  it  is  under  the 
immediate  control  of  our  will  only.  We  can  thus  give 
no  self-consistent  interpretation  to  the  Pauline  teaching 
except  on  the  supposition  that  the  ‘  justifying  faith  ’  of 
which  he  speaks  is  equivalent  in  essence  to  that  which 
in  the  language  of  Kant  is  called  the  ‘  Good  Will  namely 
the  general  determination  of  ourselves  in  conduct  to 
the  choice  of  all  that  is  good  as  such. 

The  use  of  ‘  faith  ’  as  equivalent  to  an  act  of  will  was, 
after  all,  no  novelty.  It  was  already  in  St.  Paul’s  time 
a  theological  commonplace  4  to  single  out  from  the  Old 
Testament  certain  examples  which  consisted  primarily 
in  such  a  trust  in  God  as  implied  practical  self-surrender 

1  St.  James,  ii.  19. 

2  Antinomianism  has  been  popularly  expressed  in  the  couplet — 

’Tis  no  matter  what  you  do 
If  your  heart  be  only  true. 

8  Gal.  v.  6. 

4  Heb.  xi.  ;  St.  James  ii.  21-25. 


56  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


to  His  will — the  ‘  faith  ’  of  Rahab,  the  ‘  faith  5  of  Closes, 
the  ‘  faith  ’  of  Abraham.  St.  Paul — it  is  to  be  remembered 
— found  on  his  Conversion  a  religious  system  already  in 
existence.  He  found  men  living  in  a  state  of  inward 
peace,  assurance  and  joy,  which  he  himself  had  failed 
to  find  in  the  Law.  Christianity  had  indeed  effected 
a  marked  simplification  of  religion.  It  had  set  before 
men  as  the  ‘  one  thing  needful  ’  1  the  spirit  of  discipleship. 
The  following  of  Christ  had  become  to  the  disciples 
not  only  the  centre,  but  the  whole,  of  religion.  And  it  had 
become  plain  since  the  Crucifixion  that  this  following  of 
Christ  was  in  essence  not  a  literal  but  a  moral  following, 
not  an  actual  attendance  on  the  Master  but  a  submission 
to  His  call.  ‘  Faith  ’  is  contrasted  in  Scripture  not  with 
‘reason’  but  with  ‘sight’.2  The  disciples  endured  as 
seeing  Him  Who  is  invisible.3  And  the  attitude  of  the 
Christian  who  found  peace  in  submission  to  a  law,  the 
full  contents  of  which  are  necessarily  beyond  his  know¬ 
ledge,  was  strictly  analogous  to  the  obedience  of  Abraham 
who  goes  forth  in  reliance  on  the  divine  command  ‘  not 
knowing  whither  he  went  ’.  The  ‘  one  thing  needful  ’ 
is  indeed  variously  described.  In  relation  to  the  past  it 
is  repentance  :  in  relation  to  God’s  Law  it  is  the  teach¬ 
able  spirit :  in  relation  to  mankind  it  is  the  faith  which 
worketh  by  love.  But,  however  described,  it  is  one  and 
the  same  frame  of  mind,  and  its  one  indispensable 
element  is  rightness  of  will.  Since,  therefore,  St.  Paul 

1  Much  of  the  failure  to  recognize  the  distinctive  character 
of  the  Christian  Religion  is  due  to  the  habit  of  taking  as  its  central 
principle  its  inculcation  of  universal  charity — which  it  shares 
with  Buddhism — instead  of  that  conception  of  f  spiritual  religion  ’ 
which  as  we  shall  see  below  is  peculiar  to  itself. 

2  2  Cor.  v  7.  3  Heb.  xi.  27. 


CHRISTIANITY 


57 


speaks  of  righteousness  by  faith  as  a  righteousness  're¬ 
cently  manifested’,1  we  are  justified  in  interpreting  his 
meaning  by  a  reference  to  the  circumstances  of  his  time. 
But  even  apart  from  this  his  own  language  is  sufficiently 
clear.  Faith  is  described  by  him  as  consistent  with  every¬ 
thing  except  wilful  disobedience  :  and  the  command 
to  prove  oneself  whether  one  be  '  in  the  faith  ’ 2  refers 
obviously  to  a  self-examination  which  turns,  not  on 
belief,  but  on  conduct. 

And,  in  truth,  the  method  of  '  faith  ’  thus  interpreted 
is  the  method  not  of  St.  Paul  only  but  of  Christianity 
in  general.  The  sense  that  the  '  one  thing  needful  ’  is  the 
will  right  with  God  is  the  universal  and  peculiar  possession 
of  Christians.  It  is  manifested  by  Christians  in  practice 
even  in  schools  of  thought  where  its  theoretical  expression 
has  been  weak  and  halting  ;  and  it  is  never  manifested 
fully  except  in  Christianity  alone.  The  prophet  Micah, 
indeed,  divined  that  the  Lord  required  nothing  but  that 
man  should  '  do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly 
with  his  God.’ 3  But  apart  from  the  all-important  fact 
that  Micah  entirely  failed  to  establish  a  religion  which 
should  rest  on  these  purely  spiritual  conditions,  his 
statement  is  in  itself  defective.  The  dictum  of  Micah 
would  have  brought  no  explicit  comfort  to  the  Penitent 
Thief,  since  it  insists  upon  justice,  the  very  virtue  which 
the  Thief  had  neglected  to  practise.  In  Christianity, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  peace  which  depends  on  the 
rightness  of  the  heart  with  God  is  always  explicitly 
connected  with  the  knowledge  of  the  imperfection  of  our 
actual  achievement.  To  St.  Paul  the  Christian  is  one 


1  Rom.  iii.  21. 


2  2  Cor.  xiii.  5. 


3  Mic.  vi.  8. 


58  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


who  '  worketh  not,  but  believeth  on  Him  that  justifieth 
the  ungodly >  x.  Similarly,  Luther  insists  that  it  is  not 
faith  and  love,  but  faith  alone,  which  justifies  the  sinner.2 
And  even  in  types  of  Christianity  which  stand  at  the 
opposite  extreme  from  that  of  Luther  and  St.  Paul, 
there  exists  the  same  perpetual  sense  of  the  presence  of 
sin.  The  repeated  prayer  of  the  author  of  the  ‘  Golden 
Legend  ’  is  that  the  Saints  may  ‘  impetre  remission  ’3 
of  our  sins  from  God.  It  is  a  pure  mistake  to  suppose 
that  Christianity  even  of  the  simplest  type  is  ever  a 
mere  fairy-tale — the  mere  Legend  of  One  Who  sends  His 
Son  in  changed  form  upon  earth  and  arbitrarily  offers 
Heaven  to  those  who  shall  penetrate  this  disguise,4 — 
and  thence  to  conclude  that  popular  Christianity  is  con¬ 
cerned  with  Salvation  in  no  higher  sense  than  that  of 
material  happiness  in  a  future  existence.  The  Christian 
mind  in  all  its  varieties  is  set  on  Salvation  in  its  deeper 
significance,  and  even  where  language  turns  mainly  upon 
future  glory  it  is  as  a  symbol  of  deliverance  from  moral 
guilt  that  future  glory  is  chiefly  valued.  A  future  life 
without  deliverance  from  sin,  however  happy  it  might 
otherwise  be  conceived  to  be,  would  have  no  attraction 
for  the  Christian  soul. 

Thus  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  Christianity  is  char- 

1  Rom.  iv.  5. 

2  With  the  discussions  in  Mohler’s  Symbolik  §  15  to  §  20  cf. 
Ritschl,  Rechtfertigung  nnd  Versohnung,  §  19. 

3  See  e.g.  the  life  of  St.  Paul  the  Hermit :  the  Purification 
of  our  Lady  :  the  Chairing  of  St.  Peter. 

4  So  that  the  few 

On  whom  My  grace  descends,  those  who  are  marked 
As  vessels  to  the  honour  of  their  God, 

May  credit  this  strange  sacrifice  and  save 
Their  souls  alive. 


Shelley’s  ‘  Queen  Mab  \  vii. 


CHRISTIANITY 


59 


acterized  by  the  '  inward  method  5  in  the  spiritual  life — 
the  same  thing  might  be  said  of  Buddhism  : — it  is  char¬ 
acterized  by  the  use  of  an  inward  method  of  a  special  kind. 
Christianity  has  worked  the  supreme  revolution  because, 
unlike  Buddhism,  it  has  set  before  men  an  ideal  which 
contains  no  element  against  which  the  healthy  soul  re¬ 
volts.  The  Christian  ideal,  even  as  embodied  in  the 
Person  of  Christ,  is  rather  a  sketch  than  a  complete  pic¬ 
ture.  Christ  is  presented  to  us  in  Scripture  rather  as 
faultless  than  as  perfect.  There  are  many  aspects  of 
human  duty — the  life  of  the  soldier,  the  thinker,  the 
scholar,  the  artist — for  which  neither  His  precept  nor 
His  example  give  any  explicit  guidance.  But,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  the  Christian  ideal  has  a  convincing  finality  which 
is  quite  unique.  The  perfected  Buddhist  ascetic  has 
destroyed  elements  in  human  nature  which  were  worth 
preserving.  The  perfected  Christian  saint,  if  such  a 
saint  could  be  found,  would  be  fit  for  immediate  entrance 
upon  the  life  of  glory.  While,  however,  Christianity 
has  made  the  unattainableness  of  the  true  ideal  plainer 
than  ever  before,  it  has  at  the  same  time  revealed  the 
possibility  of  peace  of  mind  through  genuine  submission 
to  this  ideal  in  will — a  submission  which  may  be  com¬ 
plete  at  any  moment  though  the  obedience  in  deed  can 
never  in  this  world  be  complete  at  all. 

We  may  see  then  how  the  Kantian  terminology  enables 
us  to  define,  with  a  clearness  unattained  in  pre-Kantian 
days,  the  frame  of  mind  which  is  characteristic  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  and  also  to  connect  this  with  the  claim  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  to  be  the  universal  religion.  If  the  ‘  Good  Will  ’ — 
the  whole-hearted  surrender  of  the  Will  to  God’s  com¬ 
mand — is  indeed  the  ‘  one  thing  needful '  for  justification, 


6o 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


then,  but  not  otherwise,  justification  is  open  to  all  man¬ 
kind.  Special  capacities — of  emotion,  belief,  or  know- 
ledge — are  possessed  by  some  men  and  denied  to  others. 
The  Good  Will  alone  is  within  the  reach  of  every  rational 
being.  It  is  true  that  with  St.  Paul  the  surrender  of 
the  Will  to  God  had  been  contemporaneous  with  the  con¬ 
viction  that  Christ  was  raised  from  the  dead.  The  de¬ 
cision  and  the  belief,  thus  associated  together,  were  never 
afterwards  severed.  And  therefore  St.  Paul  has  used 
language  which  some  schools  of  theology  will  always 
quote  1  as  evidence  that  the  *  faith  ’  of  which  he  speaks  is 

1  See  especially  Rom.  x.  9,  1  Cor.  xv.  2.  Those  who  allege 
these  passages  in  favour  of  a  non-moral  interpretation  of  St. 
Paul’s  language  may  be  asked  whether  they  would  themselves 
be  willing  to  accept  St.  Paul’s  statements  in  an  absolutely  literal 
manner.  His  actual  words  would  cover  the  case  of  the  morally 
profligate  scholar  who  on  arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  Christ’s 
resurrection  was  the  best  attested  fact  in  history  should  have 
courage  to  avow  this  belief.  But  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is 
in  form  a  letter  :  and  the  warning  of  Matthew  Arnold  against 
applying  to  literary  works  canons  of  interpretation  appropriate 
to  dogmatic  treatises  only  cannot  be  too  often  in  our  minds. 

St.  Paul’s  general  attitude  towards  moral  and  intellectual 
errors  seems  sufficiently  plain.  We  may  indeed  recognize  three 
grades  of  severity  in  his  condemnation. 

His  greatest  severity  is  for  those  who  while  professing  Christi¬ 
anity  violate  the  Moral  Law  (1  Cor.  iv.  19-21  ;  v.  1-5,  9,  n-13  ; 
Eph.  v.  6  ;  cf.  2  Tim.  ii.  18.  To  hold  oneself  to  be  already  a 
saint  in  glory — if  this  be  the  meaning — seems  inconsistent  with 
moral  sanity.  It  is  clear  at  any  rate  that  the  heresy,  whatever 
it  was,  was  associated  with  antinomian  practices.  See  v.  19 
and  cf.  1  Tim.  i.  20  with  1  Cor.  v.  5). 

Next  in  severity  is  his  language  towards  those  who  have 
renounced  a  higher  spiritual  method  in  favour  of  a  lower  one. 
(Gal.  iii.  1  ;  Col.  ii.  20). 

Lightest  is  his  condemnation  of  error  which  concerns  mere 
matters  of  fact,  even  though  this  be  disbelief  in  the  Resurrection 
of  Christ  (1  Cor.  xv.). 

In  the  first  case  he  excommunicates  :  in  the  second  he  de- 


CHRISTIANITY 


6x 


not  an  act  of  will  but  the  acceptance  of  an  historical 
belief,  or  perhaps  that  it  is  an  act  compounded  of  these 
two  heterogeneous  elements.  Such  arguments,  however, 
are  for  controversial  use  only.  By  an  honourable  in¬ 
consistency  they  are  forgotten  in  dealing  with  the  sinner. 
No  one  really  desires  that  the  Fenitent  Thief,  pending 
his  instruction  in  the  Apostles’  Creed,  should  be  excluded 
from  Paradise.  And  it  is  surely  clear  that  if  St.  Paul  had 
been  conversant  with  modern  distinctions — if  the  broad 
line  between  belief  and  will,  the  speculative  and  the 
practical,  had  been  as  evident  to  him  as,  since  the  time 
of  Kant,  it  is  to  us — he  could  on  his  own  principles  have 
had  little  tolerance  for  those  who  would  assert  that  the 
penitent  and  obedient  spirit  is  no  longer  the  one  thing 
needful  for  finding  peace  with  God,  but  that  we  must  be 

nounces  :  in  the  third  he  merely  argues.  To  profess  that  Christ 
delivers  from  sin  (xv.  17)  and  yet  to  deny  that  He  is  risen  seems 
to  the  Apostle  profoundly  illogical ;  but  there  is  no  word  here 
of  ‘  delivering  the  unbeliever  to  Satan  ’,  no  suggestion  that  the 
Christians  should  ‘  put  away  from  among  themselves  that  wicked 
person  no  passionate  pleading  and  rebuke  such  as  marks  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 

That  belief  in  Christ’s  Resurrection,  though  associated  in  St. 
Paul’s  own  case  with  ‘  saving  faith  ’,  is  not  considered  by  him 
as  absolutely  identical  with  it  or  inseparable  from  it,  may  be  seen 
by  a  consideration  of  Rom.  ix.  32.  The  Jew  is  there  declared 
to  have  failed,  not  because  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  was  not 
made  known  to  him,  but  because  of  the  faultiness  of  the  method 
by  which  he  sought  righteousness.  If  the  veil  had  not  been 
upon  his  heart  he  might  have  learned  from  the  words  of  Moses 
(Rom.  x.  6)  the  method  of  righteousness  through  faith  which 
was  ‘  witnessed  by  the  law  and  the  prophets  ’  (iii.  21),  though 
not  actually  manifested  till  the  veil  was  done  away  in  Christ. 
It  is  Christ  as  the  bringer  in  of  a  new  Law  and  a  new  Covenant, 
rather  than  Christ  as  risen,  that  is  the  central  theological  thought 
even  for  the  Apostle  for  whom  the  bodily  resurrection  meant 
so  much. 


62 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


careful  and  troubled  about  many  things  besides,  such  as 
the  intricacies  of  evidential  theology.  The  childlike  and 
teachable  spirit  will  lead  the  scholar  to  seek  out  the 
truth  on  these  subjects  as  on  all  others  :  but  since  belief 
in  Christ’s  resurrection  can  on  no  hypothesis  come  to  us 
with  immediate  evidence,  but  only  as  the  result  of  a 
chain  of  reasoning,  it  is  impossible  that  this  belief  can 
stand  in  the  same  relation  to  our  faith  as  it  did  to  that 
of  the  Apostle,  or  to  any  other  of  the  original  eye-wit¬ 
nesses.1 


We  arrive  then  at  an  answer  to  the  question  with 
which  this  chapter  opened.  The  method  by  which 
the  religion  of  Christ  seeks  deliverance  from  guilt  is  a 

1  It  seems  worth  while  to  point  out  that  the  ambiguity  of  the 
word  ‘  faith  ’ — though  it  has  led  to  confusion — can  seldom  have 
led  to  vital  error.  Here,  indeed,  as  so  often,  the  vaguer  term — 
the  language  of  *  literature  ’  rather  than  *  dogma  ’ — is  in  the 
end  the  more  expressive.  Christianity  proclaims  salvation 
through  *  will  ’  rather  than  through  '  deed  *  (cf.  Rom.  vii.  18)  ; 
through  ‘  trying  ’  to  serve  God  rather  than  through  f  succeeding  ’ 
in  this  service.  But  the  term  ‘  faith  ’  has  advantages  which 
suggest  that  we  cannot  well  find  a  satisfactory  substitute  for 
it.  While  ‘  trying  ’  carries  with  it  the  association  of  precarious 
experiment,  ‘  faith  ’  suggests  assured  confidence.  Again  *  will ' 
suggests  activity,  while  *  faith  ’  suggests  that  passive  attitude 
which  is  congenial  with  the  language  of  Kant  no  less  than  with 
that  of  the  New  Testament  (Rom.  ix.  16) — the  attitude  of  sub¬ 
mission  to  a  law  which  even  against  our  will  can  extort  our 
reverence.  To  Kant  the  Moral  Imperative,  though  present 
to  every  rational  being,  is  yet  a  standing  miracle,  comparable 
to  the  starry  heavens.  For  St.  Paul,  though  Salvation  is  thrown 
open  to  *  all  the  seed  it  is  yet  the  gift  of  God  (Eph.  ii.  8).  And 
no  one  who  has  known  the  temptations  of  a  time  of  torpor — when 
all  good  impulses  except  the  bare  Imperative  of  Duty  have 
ceased  to  act — will  find  such  language  unintelligible. 


CHRISTIANITY 


63 


method  quite  its  own  :  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  it  is  the  one  method  by  which  freedom  from  guilt 
can  reasonably  be  hoped  for.  For  what  are  its  possible 
competitors  ?  Oriental  Asceticism  is  a  way  of  condemna¬ 
tion — an  f  offence  ultimately  to  all  true  natures  h1  The 
legal  method  is  a  way  of  condemnation  also  :  2  since  no 
honest  man  can  conceivably  hold  that  he  has  fulfilled  all 
the  Law  of  God.  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  offers 
the  only  peace,  freedom  and  self-respect,  which  is  possible 
to  an  awakened  soul  in  a  world  of  sin.  Granted  that  to 
many  the  cleansing  by  Christ’s  blood  is  an  unmeaning 
phrase  :  there  is  yet  no  one  who  may  not  discover,  by 
direct  experience  and  quite  apart  from  all  supernatural 
conceptions,  that — with  a  will  attuned  to  the  law  which 
he  cannot  perfectly  fulfil  in  deed — he  may  be  ‘  clean  ’ 
in  spite  of  sin  ‘  through  the  word  which  Christ  has  spoken  ’.3 

1  Harnack,  loc.  cit. 

2  f  The  ministration  of  death  2  Cor.  iii.  7. 

3  St.  John  xv.  3. 


CHAPTER  IX 


CHRIST 


ROM  Christianity  as  a  System  we  now  pass  to 


A  Christ  as  a  Person.  How  far  will  the  purely 
moral  method  of  argument  which  we  have  hitherto  pur¬ 
sued  lead  us  towards  a  Christian  estimate  of  Jesus  ? 

There  are  many  to  whom  the  transition  from  Christianity 
to  Christ  is  so  natural  as  to  seem  hardly  to  be  a  transition 
at  all.  We  use  Christ’s  name  freely  in  speaking  of  our 
own  religious  states  :  we  speak  of  Christian  salvation, 
Christian  hope,  Christian  humility,  Christian  charity, 
Christian  resignation.  In  these  and  other  phrases 
the  common  language  of  believers  has  always  identified 
our  Religion  with  its  Founder. 

But  is  this  identification  well  grounded  ?  There  are 
those  who  deny  it  :  who  assert  that  Jesus  stands  in  no 
such  unique  relation  as  this  phraseology  implies  with 
the  religion  of  the  modern  Christian.  f  What  our  re¬ 
ligious  experiences  prove  is  that  there  is  a  present  power 
adequate  to  produce  them  :  they  give  no  one  any  right 
to  call  that  power  by  any  historical  name.  To  call  it  the 
“  Living  Christ  ”  is  to  beg  the  question  :  it  is  to  go  be¬ 
yond  what  the  evidence  will  justify.  The  Buddhist 
would  have  as  much  right  to  call  it  the  “  Living  Buddha 

64 


CHRIST 


65 


The  best  name  for  it  is  doubtless  the  “  Living  God  ”  ’.1 

This  objection  has  in  part  been  already  met.  We  have 
seen  why  St.  Paul  could  not  have  spoken — in  the  sense 
here  suggested — of  the  ‘  Living  Moses  \  The  modern 
Christian  has  the  same  reason  for  refusing  to  speak  of  the 
‘  Living  Buddha ’,  and — in  general — for  singling  out  the 
influence  of  Christ  from  among  all  the  other  holy  and 
noble  influences  which  the  world  has  known.  Christ — it 
is  true — is  not  unique  in  every  sense.  He  is  not  the 
only  spiritual  teacher  of  mankind.  Nor  is  He  the  only 
teacher  in  whose  light  men  have  seen  light  through 
succeeding  generations.  Gautama,  Socrates,  Francis  of 
Assisi  may  all  in  various  ways  be  aptly  compared  to  Him. 
But  He  is  unique  in  being  just  what  Lie  was,  and  in 
teaching  just  what  He  taught.  And  it  is  precisely  by 
being  what  He  was  and  not  another,  that  He  has  been 
the  author  of  the  gifts  that  are  distinctively  Christian. 
When  we  are  speaking,  not  of  achievement,  but  of  right¬ 
ness  of  mood  and  temper,  the  difference  between  absolute 
rightness  and  anything  less  than  this  is  indeed  infinite. 
It  is  quite  conceivable  then  that  Christ  is  not  merely 
unique  but  supreme — that  the  supremacy  which  belongs 
to  His  religion  belongs  also  to  His  Person.  But  is  this 
so  in  truth  ?  We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter 
that  the  Gospel  has  brought  a  deliverance  from  guilt  such 
as  other  systems  have  failed  to  achieve  ;  and  thus  that 
we  are  not  going  beyond  what  experience  warrants  if  we 
say  that  we  have  found  Salvation  through  Christianity. 
But  are  we  entitled  to  say,  on  mere  grounds  of  experience 
alone,  that  Salvation  is  to  be  found  through  Christ  ? 

1  Hibberi  Journal,  vol.  iv.  no.  4,  July  1906,  p.  851.  Why 
not  face  the  facts  ?  An  appeal  to  Protestants.  Rev.  K.  C.  Ander¬ 
son,  D.D. 


66 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


This  question  may  be  asked  in  two  senses.  We  may 
conceivably  regard  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  as  an  Ideal 
Figure  and  nothing  more.  Even  so  we  can  hardly  deny 
that  the  moral  teaching  of  the  Gospels  is  inextricably 
intertwined  with  its  Personal  Embodiment :  even  so  it 
will  still  in  a  sense  be  Christ,  and  not  merely  Christianity, 
which  is  the  force  which  draws  men  upward.  If  on  the 
other  hand  we  believe  ourselves  to  know  Jesus  as  a 
Person  of  history, — a  Power  of  Salvation  manifested  in 
the  flesh — we  shall  have  arrived  at  a  position  far  nearer 
to  that  of  traditional  theology.  Has  the  world  then 
been  saved  by  the  historic  Jesus  ?  Has  the  world  been 
saved  by  the  Ideal  Christ  ?  Provided  that  we  keep  these 
two  questions  clearly  apart  in  our  minds,  there  is  no  harm 
in  discussing  them  together. 

In  dealing  with  both  these  questions  we  must  be  careful 
to  avoid  the  familiar  assumptions  of  orthodoxy.  We 
must  not  assume  that  the  Evangelists  were  supernaturally 
protected  from  error,  or  that,  Christ  being  divine,  His 
actions  must  be  judged  by  a  special  standard.1  What¬ 
ever  result  we  may  arrive  at  as  a  conclusion,  it  will  be 
arguing  in  a  circle  to  introduce  such  assumptions  among 
our  premises. 

It  will  be  wise,  moreover,  to  keep  constantly  in  view 
opinions  which  stand  at  the  extreme  of  opposition  to 
those  usually  held  by  Christians.  A  brilliant  writer  has 
declared  himself  weary  of  hearing  all  ‘  perfections  ascribed 
to  a  semi-mythical  Syrian  \  Others  have  spoken  as  if 

1  See  One  Volume  Bible  Commentary  (Macmillan  and  Co), 
p.  655.  The  reply  made  here  to  Professor  Huxley’s  argument 
would  serve  to  justify,  not  only  the  destruction  of  property,  but 
murder  or  theft. 


CHRIST 


67 

the  Gospels  contained  nothing  but  the  commonplaces 
of  morality  with  a  garniture  of  fabulous  incident.  Such 
sentiments  ought  not  greatly  to  surprise  us.  It  should 
be  remembered  that  the  whole  tendency  of  modern 
training  is  to  make  men  suspicious  of  miraculous  stories 
in  whatever  context  they  may  occur.  The  onus  probandi 
is  upon  the  Christian. 

We  must  give  special  attention  too,  at  the  present 
moment,  to  what  is  called  the  ‘  eschatological  theory  \ 
As  expounded  by  Dr.  Schweitzer,1  it  cannot  be  classed 
among  the  views  which  seek  to  lessen  the  Figure  of  the 
Saviour.  In  the  popularized  form,  however,  in  which 
it  has  had  vogue  in  this  country,  little  except  the  nega¬ 
tions  have  been  retained.  Thus  we  are  told  that  what 
Jesus  really  was  must  always  remain  in  large  measure  un¬ 
known  :  and  that  so  far  as  we  know  Him  He  belongs  to 
a  world  of  thought  so  different  from  ours  that  to  enter  into 
His  mind  is  impossible.  The  surest  fact  about  Him — it 
is  said — is  that  He  proclaimed  the  speedy  Advent  of 
the  end,  and  His  own  appearance,  as  the  Son  of  Man  pre¬ 
dicted  by  Daniel,  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven  :  and,  more¬ 
over, — since  all  His  teaching  is  subordinate  to  this  hope — 
His  directions  for  conduct  become  a  mere  “  Interimse- 
thik”,  a  purely  provisional  morality  fitted  to  fill  the 
short  gap  between  His  earthly  preaching  and  His  miracu¬ 
lous  return. 

1  The  translation  into  English  of  Dr.  Schweitzer’s  great  Prose- 
Epic — under  the  title  of  the  ‘  Quest  of  the  Historical  Jesus  ’ — 
is  an  important  event.  Yet,  so  far  as  the  character  of  our  Lord 
is  concerned,  we  may  gain  more  light  from  an  older  work  written 
in  our  own  tongue.  The  texts  which  revealed  the  ‘  secret  of 
Jesus  ’  to  the  author  of  Literature  and  Dogma ,  are  still  in  the 
Bible,  even  though  scholars  more  learned  than  he  have  failed 
to  understand  their  significance. 


68 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


What  positive  evidence  have  we  to  oppose  to  these 
denials  ?  Let  us  turn  to  the  Synoptic  Gospels.1  The 
Master’s  teaching  as  there  described  is  conditioned,  no 
doubt,  by  the  popular  notions  of  His  day.  It  is  moulded 
by  the  Messianic  expectation.  But  was  He  Himself  at 
the  same  intellectual  standpoint  as  His  contemporaries, 
or  did  He  merely  use  current  notions  for  His  own  higher 
purposes  ? 

And — first  of  all — what  sort  of  picture  of  His  character 
and  teaching  do  these  Gospels  convey  ?  A  clear  concep¬ 
tion  of  this  picture,  of  its  definiteness,  its  unity,  and  its 
uniqueness,  is  the  first  step  towards  a  just  estimate  of  its 
historic  value. 

Now  to  dissect  so  sacred  a  thing  as  our  impression  of 
the  teaching  and  character  of  Jesus  can  never  be  a 
wholly  pleasant  task,  however  reverent  be  the  spirit  in 
which  it  is  undertaken.  Yet  the  effort  is  worth  making: 
for  even  a  brief  study  of  the  subject  is  enough  to  show 
that  there  are  facts  within  the  reach  of  every  Bible- 
reader  which  form  a  sufficient  basis  for  the  conclusions 
which  most  concern  practical  Christianity.  In  all  the 
direct  sources  of  the  Evangelical  narrative  which  modern 
criticism  asks  us  to  distinguish — in  St.  Mark,  in  the 
"  non-Marcan  document”,  in  the  special  sections  peculiar 
to  the  authors  of  the  First  and  Third  Gospels — there  is  a 
type  of  teaching  which  cannot  in  the  nature  of  the  case 
be  purely  subordinate  to  the  hope  of  a  Messianic  Reign, 
unless  this  hope  is  interpreted  in  a  highly  spiritual  sense. 
Modern  critics  have  been  accused  sometimes  of  making 

1  The  Gospel  of  St.  John  has  no  obvious  bearing  on  the  present 
argument.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  modern  criticism  has 
yet  found  the  key  to  the  intricate  problems  which  that  Gospel 


CHRIST 


69 

the  arbitrary  assumption  that  Jesus  is  to  be  interpreted 
as  if  He  were  a  modern  Liberal  and  Protestant.  These 
phrases  would  not  be  applied  to  Him  without  qualifica¬ 
tion  by  any  man  of  reverent  mind.  Yet  none  the  less 
the  Liberal  Protestant  may  fairly  claim  that  all  that  he 
values  most  in  his  religion  has  been  directly  learned  from 
the  express  teaching  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels.  The  words 
of  Jesus,  as  the  Evangelists  report  them,  are  no  mere 
*  striking  moral  aphorisms  ’ — comparable  to  the  dicta  of 
the  Wise  Men  of  Greece  or  to  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon. 
Many  of  Llis  sayings,  even  if  taken  singly,  may  justly  be 
described  to-day — in  spite  of  the  distance  which  separates 
His  time  from  ours — as  the  last  word  of  spiritual  wisdom 
on  the  subjects  of  which  they  treat.  His  sayings,  if  taken 
together,  embody  a  consummate  and  masterly  expression 
of  the  loftiest  moral  attitude  yet  manifested  to  humanity. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  He  has  led  men  into  the 
clearest  of  all  spiritual  atmospheres,  that  He  has  taught 
us  to  approach  spiritual  things  in  just  that  temper  of 
mind  which  leads  most  surely  to  the  right  solution  of 
moral  problems  as  they  are  one  by  one  presented  to  us 
and  that  His  teaching  may  therefore  be  justly  regarded  as 
the  supreme  achievement  of  the  human  spirit. 

To  form  such  a  judgment  is  an  act  no  doubt  of  moral 
intuition  which  cannot  be  justified  by  mere  argument  : 
yet  this  judgment  would  appear  to  be  within  the  reach 
of  every  open  mind.  To  treat  the  moral  teaching  of  the 
Pagan  philosophers  as  in  any  sense  equal  to  that  of  Jesus, 
is  possible  to  those  only  who  take  the  facts  not  as  a  whole 
but  piecemeal.  And  one  thing  at  least  is  demonstrably 
plain.  The  view  that  His  teaching  is  identical  with  the 
morality  of  other  systems,  consisting  merely  of  the 
commonplaces  with  which  no  religion  can  dispense,  can 


70 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


be  held  only  by  those  who  close  their  e5’es  to  the  evidence. 
Whether  His  teaching  is  true  or  false,  it  is  at  least 
distinctive. 

It  will  be  convenient — though  the  correctness  of  the 
current  theory  is  in  no  way  vital  to  the  argument — to 
follow  the  commonly  accepted  division  of  the  '  sources  ’, 
and  to  begin  therefore  with  the  Second  Gospel  and  the 
supposed  ‘  non-Marcan  document  \ 

St.  Mark — whatever  view  we  may  ultimately  come  to 
take  of  him  as  a  historian — is  clearly  no  mere  ignorant 
recounter  of  marvels.  He  stands,  for  example,  on  a 
much  higher  intellectual  level  than  that  of  the  earliest 
historians  of  the  Franciscan  Movement.  Granted  that 
there  are  in  his  Gospel  touches  of  naivete  such  as  the  later 
Evangelists  were  careful  to  eliminate,  he  is  concerned,  no 
less  than  they,  with  the  great  spiritual  issues  which 
belong  to  all  time.  It  is  he  who  points  out  that  the 
parable  concerning  the  washing  of  hands  before  meat  is 
in  effect  a  declaration  that  all  meats  are  clean.1  It  is  he 
alone  who  has  preserved  the  fine  phrase  which  condemns 
the  blasphemer  against  the  Holy  Ghost  as  guilty  of  an 
'eternal  sin’.2  There  is  indeed  no  ground  whatever 
for  the  suspicion  that  the  Master  as  He  here  appears  is  of 
lower  spiritual  or  intellectual  stature  than  in  the  por¬ 
traits  in  the  other  Gospels. 

We  may  notice — to  begin  with — how  much  the  Second 
Gospel  contains  of  the  teaching  which  we  are  apt  to  regard 
as  distinctively  Pauline.  St.  Paul’s  greatest  service  to 
theology  has  been  to  define  in  unmistakable  phrases  the 
essence  of  ‘  spiritual  religion  \  He  teaches  that  our 

1  Mark  vii.  19,  reading  KaOapl'Coiv.  See  R.V. 

3  Mark  iii.  29,  reading  'a/xapr^/Aaros. 


CHRIST 


7i 


standing  before  God  depends  wholly  on  our  inward  frame 
of  mind.  ‘  To  the  pure  all  things  are  pure  :  but  to  them 
that  are  defiled  and  unbelieving  is  nothing  pure  :  but 
both  their  mind  and  their  conscience  are  defiled/  1  If  all 
things  are  pure  to  the  pure  in  heart,  it  follows — in  sharp 
opposition  with  the  Pagan  and  Jewish  belief  in  the  un¬ 
cleanness  of  special  material  things,  and  with  the  Oriental 
belief  in  the  evil  nature  of  Matter  in  general — that  nothing 
is  unclean  in  itself  ;  that  nothing  can  become  unclean 
except  in  relation  to  the  perverse  intention  of  a  rational 
being  ;  and  consequently  that  all  time,  and  all  matter, 
are  in  themselves  good,  every  day  being  worthy  of 
esteem,2  and  the  earth  the  Lord’s  and  the  fulness  thereof.3 
Hence  it  arises  that  Christianity  can  be  independent  of 
externals  without  despising  them.  It  is  independent  of 
‘  works  ’ — since  works  cannot  justify,4  while  the  pure 
heart  apart  from  works  can  : 5  it  is  independent  of  wisdom 
— since  though  in  our  knowledge  of  Christ  all  the  treasures 
of  wisdom  are  implicitly  contained,6  and  though  we 
speak  wisdom  among  the  perfect,7  men  can  yet  be  justified 
at  the  lowest  stage  of  intellectual  development  :  8  it  is 
independent  of  ordinances — since  under  the  Gospel  par¬ 
ticular  commands  and  rules  can  never  be  absolute.9  The 


1  Titus  i.  15.  It  is  clear  that  these  words  sum  up  the  Pauline 
view,  elsewhere  less  compendiously  expressed.  The  question 
therefore  of  the  authorship  of  this  Epistle  is  not  here  relevant. 

2  Rom.  xiv.  5.  3  1  Cor.  x.  26. 

4  Gal.  ii.  16.  5  Rom.  iv.  6.  6  Col.  ii.  3. 

7  1  Cor.  ii.  6.  8  1  Cor.  i.  26-27. 

9  Coloss.  ii.  16,  etc.  Even  the  strictest  sacramental  teaching 

denies  that  the  necessity  of  sacraments  to  salvation  is  absolute. 

They  are  held  to  be  necessary  ‘  where  they  may  be  had  Cf. 

Summa  Theol.  part  iii.  68  art.  2,  and  St.  Ambrose’s  De  obitu 

Valentiniani  Consolatio,  sec.  51. 


72 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


soul  which  is  subject  to  the  Law  of  Love  is  ipso  facto 
free  from  every  other  law.  Since  nothing  can  override 
the  Law  of  Love,1  and  since  nothing  can  be  required  to 
supplement  it,2  it  follows  that,  except  in  subordination 
to  this  law  and  as  mere  cases  of  its  application,  other  laws 
can  have  no  place  in  Christianity  at  all.  f  Against  love  ’ 
therefore  ‘  there  is  no  law.’  3  Hence  the  Christian  is 
subject  not  to  the  letter  but  to  the  spirit4  and  so  is  free,5 
the  one  principle  which  rules  him  being  a  principle  which 
he  understands  and  voluntarily  accepts. 

The  chief  Pauline  doctrines  and  phrases  are  united  thus 
by  a  simple  thread  of  connexion.  But  can  we  not  for 
every  one  of  these  doctrines  find  a  parallel  in  the  pages  of 
St.  Mark  ?  Here  too  it  is  taught  that  the  pure  heart  is 
the  one  condition  by  which  all  things  become  good  to  us.  It 
is  by  a  change  of  heart6  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  to  be 
prepared  for  ;  it  is  to  those  who  have  a  mind  open  to 
welcome  God’s  blessings  7  and  His  commands  8  that  the 
Master  attributes  the  faith  which  stands  in  contrast  with 
the  hardness  of  heart  of  those  who  are  in  bondage  to  their 
own  preconceived  theories  :  it  is  this  ‘  faith  ’  which  alone 
opens  to  us  all  God’s  gifts.9  And  how  could  the  fundamental 
principle  of  all  spiritual  religion  be  expressed  with  more 
convincing  felicity  than  in  the  epigram  that  '  not  that 
which  goeth  into  the  mouth,  but  that  which  cometh  out  of 
it,  defileth  the  man  ’  ?  10  Thus  we  are  brought  to  that 
very  attitude  towards  works,  wisdom,  and  ordinances, 


1  Cf.  St.  Mark.  xii.  31. 

8  Gal.  v.  23.  4  Rom.  ii. 

5  Rom.  vii.  2-6  ;  Gal.  v.  1. 

6  /leravoLa,  Mark  i.  15. 

8  iv.  20.  9  iv.  23. 


2  Cf.  St.  Matt.  xxii.  40. 
29  ;  vii.  6  ;  2  Cor.  iii.  6. 


11.  5. 
vii.  20. 


10 


CHRIST 


73 


which  was  defined  in  more  technical  language  by  St, 
Paul.  The  Master  is  described  as  teaching  clearly  that 
good  works  may  even  be  an  obstacle  to  the  reception  of 
the  Gospel  ;4  that  the  simplicity  of  the  child  is  no  dis¬ 
qualification  for  membership  in  His  Kingdom  ;2  that  rules 
and  ordinances  are  to  be  judged  simply  by  the  good  or 
evil  that  results  from  them  ;3  that  since  the  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  man  is  lord  of  the  Sabbath.4 

On  the  subject  of  spiritual  religion  then,  Jesus  teaches — 
according  to  St.  Mark — the  whole  Pauline  view. 

Nor  is  the  disciple  above  his  Master.  Apart  from  the 
Pauline  distinctions  between  *  faith  ’  and  ‘  works  ’,  '  grace  ’ 
and  ‘  nature  ’,  the  ‘  flesh  5  and  the  ’  spirit  ’,  the  true  drift 
of  much  of  the  Gospel  teaching  might  have  been  missed. 
Yet  the  language  used  by  Jesus  in  the  Second  Gospel, 
though  less  systematic  than  St.  Paul’s,  is  wider  in  appeal, 
more  final,  more  convincing.  It  is  Jesus  Who  speaks 
with  the  more  masterly  air  of  ease  and  grace,  with 
the  readier  wealth  of  illustration  and  epigram.  St.  Paul 
speaks,  after  all,  as  a  Rabbi  of  the  schools  :  Jesus  speaks 
in  the  language  of  common  life. 

The  truth  is  that,  wherever  they  can  be  compared,  the 
Master  is  plainly  above  the  disciple.  Though  optimistic 
doctrine — the  belief  in  the  goodness  of  matter  and  of  the 
things  of  sense — is  a  fundamental  part  of  the  Apostle’s 
theory,  his  teaching  is  not  pervaded  as  the  Master’s  is 
with  the  optimistic  sentiment.  So  clear  is  the  Apostle’s 
sense  of  the  unique  value  of  the  ‘  New  ’, — of  the  dispensa¬ 
tion  of  Grace,  of  Liberty,  of  the  Spirit, — that  he  is  apt  to 

1  ii.  1 7.  Cf.  St.  Luke  xv.  7.  2  x.  15.  3  iii.  4. 

4  ii.  27,  28.  The  argument  becomes  a  non  sequitur  if  the  words 
‘  Son  of  Man  ’  are  here  referred  in  any  exclusive  sense  to  the 
Master  Himself.  Cf.  Chrysostom’s  Homilies  on  St.  Matthew  xxxix. 


74 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


undervalue  the  ‘  Old  ’ — to  see  little  in  his  past  life  but  the 
galling  bondage  of  the  letter,  and  even  at  times  to  opine 
that  in  his  flesh  dwelleth  no  good  thing.1  Of  such 
Puritanism  on  its  weaker  side  there  is  in  the  Master’s  own 
teaching  no  sign.  Of  the  novelty  of  His  doctrine  He  is — 
in  the  Marcan  account  no  less  than  in  the  other  Gospels — 
well  aware  :2  and  He  teaches  unhesitatingly  that  there 
is  but  one  sole  condition  for  the  reception  of  the  highest 
gifts,  and  that  from  him  that  hath  it  not  is  taken  away  all 
that  he  seemeth  to  have.  Yet  he  freely  recognizes  the  value 
of  those  gifts  of  nature  which,  though  not  themselves  the 
one  thing  needful,  yet  predispose  the  mind  thereto. 
Just  as  in  the  Third  Gospel  we  read  of  Him  as  declaring 
the  harlot’s  sins  forgiven  f  because  she  loved  much,’ 3  so 
in  the  Marcan  narrative  He  applies  the  term  '  faith  ’  to 
the  eagerness,  persistence,  and  hope,  with  which  the 
sick  man’s  friends  desire  for  him  a  purely  earthly  blessing.4 
In  a  similar  spirit  he  declares  the  value  not  only  of  childish 
innocence,5  but  of  the  earlier  stages  in  every  spiritual 
development.  ‘  First  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full 
corn  in  the  ear.’ 6  He  does  not  indeed  say  that  works 

1  Rom.  vii.  18.  2  St.  Mark  ii.  19,  22. 

3  St.  Luke  vii.  4 7.  It  is  said  both  ‘  that  she  loved  because 
she  was  forgiven  and  ‘  that  she  was  forgiven  because  she  loved 
The  words  do  not  necessarily  imply  that  passionate  gratitude 
and  personal  devotion  to  Christ  after  the  flesh  can  of  themselves 
reconcile  a  soul  to  God.  No  more  need  be  meant  than  that  her 
love,  the  remote  cause,  led  to  repentance,  the  immediate  cause, 
of  justification. 

4  St.  Mark  ii.  5.  Cf.  x.  51.  5  St.  Mark  x.  15. 

6  St.  Mark  iv.  28.  It  is  strange  that  in  the  fight  of  this  phrase 
any  scholar  should  hold  that  the  Founder  of  our  Religion  was — 
as  John  Baptist  may  well  have  been — a  ‘man  of  one  idea’,  a 
sharer  in  the  vulgar  apocalyptic  notions.  With  St.  Mark  iv. 
28  compare  xiii.  28  :  and  see  Mr.  Percy  Gardner’s  suggestion 
(Jowett  Lectures,  chap,  iv.),  that  the  reference  to  the  fig  tree 


CHRIST 


75 


done  '  before  the  grace  of  Christ  ’  deserve  grace  de  con - 
gruo  4— -for  such  a  notion  of  merit  is  alien  to  His  teaching  2 — 
yet  in  His  general  attitude  on  this  subject  He  is  certainly 
in  some  respects  nearer  to  those  who  have  affirmed  this 
position  than  to  some  who  have  impugned  it. 

We  need  not  indeed  go  beyond  St.  Mark  to  find  the 
portrait  of  One  Who  combines  a  Puritan  strictness3  with 
a  total  absence  of  the  harshness,  the  sourness,  the  narrow¬ 
ness  which  that  term  is  held  to  connote  ;  Who  unites  the 
enthusiasms  of  diverse  religious  schools  while  eschewing 
their  perversions.  He  would  have  His  disciples  cultivate 
a  Franciscan  independence  of  earthly  resources.4  He 
affirms  that  '  taking  up  the  cross  ’  is  a  condition  of  true 
discipleship. 5  Yet  He  evinces  no  tendency  to  regard 
the  good  things  of  this  life  as  merely  transitory  and 
valueless  ;  6  no  inclination  to  the  view  that  childhood  and 
youth  are  vanity,7  no  contempt  for  bodily  pleasures8  and 
needs.  It  is  not  rebuked  as  a  sign  of  a  wordly  mind,  but 
praised  as  an  act  of  faith,  that  the  blind  man,  without  a 
word  concerning  higher  blessings,  asks  to  receive  his 
sight.9  The  very  connexion  which  Jesus  perceives  between 
healing  of  body  and  forgiveness  of  sin 10  is  enough  by  itself 

appears  here  in  a  wrong  context  which  ‘  spoils  a  fine  natural 

parable  \  It  has  been  similarly  suggested  that  in  St.  Matt, 

xxiv.  27  *  the  shining  which  cometh  from  the  east  even  unto  the 
west  ’  refers  not  to  the  lightning  but  to  the  dawn.  Cf.  St. 
Luke  xi.  36.  Aeschylus  Fragm.  372. 

1  Articles  of  Religion  of  the  Church  of  England.  Art.  XIII. 

2  St.  Luke  xvii.  10.  3  Cf.  Luke  xiii.  3,  5.  Matt.  vii.  11. 

4  St.  Mark  vi.  8.  5  St.  Mark  viii.  34. 

6  As  in  the  hymn  ‘  Passing  soon  and  httle  worth,  Are  the 
things  which  tempt  on  earth.’ 

7  Eccles.  xi.  10. 

8  With  St.  Matt.  xi.  19  cf.  Mark  ii.  19,  etc. 

9  St.  Mark.  x.  51.  10  St.  Mark  ii.  9. 


7 6  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

to  prove  that  He  regarded  bodily  health  as  good.  Epic¬ 
tetus  would  console  a  man  for  the  loss  of  his  wife  by  the 
reflection  that  after  all  she  was  but  a  woman.1  Jesus,  on 
the  other  hand,  far  from  belittling  the  gifts  which  He  asks 
in  sacrifice,  rather  exalts  the  commonest  services2 — and 
assigns  to  those  who  shall  most  humbly  serve  the  highest 
place  among  His  disciples.3  It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that 
He  commands  toleration  of  him  ‘  who  followeth  not  us  \4 

Can  we  then  read  the  Second  Gospel  without  perceiving 
that  its  Central  Figure  is  One  Who  surrounds  Himself  at  all 
times  with  an  atmosphere  of  tenderness,  humility  and 
fearlessness,  Who  inculcates  through  His  sense  of  the 
overflowing  bounty  of  God  a  bountiful  generosity  toward 
men,  which  explains  that  which  will  always  stand  out  as 
the  most  striking  element  in  Renan’s  picture — namely 
the  air  of  sunny  cheerfulness  which  belongs  to  those  who 
in  the  presence  of  the  Master  were  indeed  children  of  the 
bride-chamber  ?  5 

Thus  Jesus,  as  sketched  by  St.  Mark,  unites  elements 
which — to  say  the  least — are  but  rarely  united  elsewhere. 
He  teaches  a  religion  of  supreme  f  good  sense  ’ — which 
shall  judge  observances  solely  by  the  good  they  can 
accomplish6 — yet  a  religion  which  is  very  far  removed 
from  the  mere  vulgar  “  common  sense  ”  which  demands 
nothing  more  than  tolerance  and  good  nature.  Infinitely 
tolerant  with  regard  to  matters  which  are  of  no  real  import¬ 
ance,7  He  is  yet  infinitely  strict  with  regard  to  that 
which  may  cause  the  little  one  to  stumble.8 

1  Encheiridion,  §  3.  2  St.  Mark  ix.  41. 

3  St.  Mark  ix.  35  ;  x.  43,  44. 

4  St.  Mark  ix.  38.  5  St.  Mark  ii.  19.  6  St.  Mark  iii.  4. 

7  St.  Mark  ii.  23.  8  St.  Mark  ix.  42. 


CHRIST 


77 


His  attitude  too  is  as  unlike  that  of  the  ordinary  religious 
man  in  its  doctrinal,  as  in  its  moral,  outlook.  There  has 
been  much  speculation  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  words 
concerning  the  ‘  mystery  of  the  Kingdom  \x  On  one 
point  at  least  the  language  is  clear.  In  the  Kingdom  of 
God  no  mystery  is  ultimate  :  since  f  nothing  is  made 
secret  but  that  it  should  come  to  light/  If  this  statement 
is  to  be  taken  as  universal  in  meaning,  as  it  is  in  form,  we 
could  ask  for  no  more  philosophic  theory  concerning  the 
place  of  mystery,  ignorance,  and  delusion  in  the  life  of 
man.  '  All  that  God  is/  says  Hegel,  *  He  reveals/  2 
'  God  \  we  read,  '  is  light  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at 
all/  3  The  Master  surely — on  St.  Mark’s  showing — would 
have  been  as  severe  a  critic  of  the  obscurantism  of  much 
subsequent  theology  as  of  the  leaven  of  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees. 

It  is  often  objected  that  modern  theology — -eager  to 
claim  Jesus  as  its  own — builds  too  much  upon  single 
passages,  and  that  these  moreover  are  arbitrarily  interpre¬ 
ted  in  the  light  of  modern  conceptions.  Scepticism  of  this 
sort  may  be  carried  even  further.  It  may  be  suggested 
that  all  the  teaching  in  this  Gospel  is  but  a  chance  col¬ 
lection  of  striking  sayings,  delivered  on  various  occasions, 
and  possessing  no  general  significance  whatever.  It  is 
possible,  for  example,  (though  this  reading  meets  with  no 
support  from  the  context)  4  to  interpret  the  mystery  of  the 
Kingdom  in  a  trivial  sense — to  suppose  it  some  mere  secret 

1  St.  Mark.  iv.  n  ;  cf.  iv.  22. 

a  Logic,  Eng.  Trans,  p.  254  (2nd  edit.  Clarendon  Press,  1892). 

3  1  John  i.  5. 

4  The  words  are  used  in  relation  to  the  Parable  of  the  Sower, 
a  parable  whose  significance  is  obviously  moral  rather  than 
Eschatological. 


78  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

which  for  motives  of  policy  it  was  not  prudent  immediately 
to  disclose.  With  regard  to  many  other  passages,  taken 
singly,  a  fairly  good  case  may  be  made  for  interpretations 
of  a  similar  character.  But  can  such  negative  views  ever 
survive  a  prolonged  study  of  the  Marcan  narrative  as  a 
whole,  except  in  those  who  are  exceptionally  destitute  of 
moral  perception  ?  For  do  we  not  come  in  contact  in 
this  Gospel  with  an  original  but  self-consistent  attitude 
towards  life — an  attitude  moreover  which  possesses  the 
distinction  of  a  supreme  sanity  ? 


Turning  from  St.  Mark  to  the  '  non-Marcan  document  ’ 1 
we  find  material  which  is  almost  wholly  new,  and  yet  the 
same  general  traits  remain.  There  is  here  the  same 
insistence  upon  the  spirituality  and  inwardness  of  true 
religion — if  the  eye  is  single  the  whole  body  will  be  full 
of  light  ;  2  the  same  perception  that  men  are  to  be  judged 
by  their  response  to  God’s  call  and  not  by  their  achieve¬ 
ments — it  will  be  more  tolerable  for  Tyre  and  Sidon  in  the 
Day  of  Judgment  than  for  Chorazin  and  Bethsaida  ;3 
the  same  spirit  of  broad  tolerance,  overflowing  love  and 
open-handed  generosity;4  the  same  optimistic  joyous¬ 
ness  ;  5  the  same  sense  of  the  high  prerogative  of  the 

1  This  *  Source  ’ — according  to  Dr.  Harnack’s  re-construction 
of  it — is  printed  in  extenso  in  Mr.  Conybeare’s  Myth,  Magic  and 
Morals,  chap.  vii.  For  Greek  text  see  The  Sayings  of  Jesus 
(Crown  Theol.  Library). 

2  St.  Matt.  vi.  22  ;  St.  Luke  xi.  34.  Harnack  §  32. 

3  St.  Matt.  xi.  22  ;  St.  Luke  x.  14  ;  Harnack  §  23. 

4  With  St.  Mark  vi.  34  ;  ix.  37,  39,  41  etc.  cf.  St.  Luke  xvii. 
3,  4  ;  St.  Matt.  v.  39,  40,  42,  44,  48,  etc.  Cf.  f  good  measure, 
shaken  together  and  running  over.’  Harnack  §  4,  5,  6,  54. 

5  St.  Luke  vi.  23  ;  xii.  22,  31,  etc.  Cf.  however  xii.  51,  53  ; 
Harnack  §  3,  35,  38. 


CHRIST 


79 


simple  ;1 2 * 4  the  same  high  value  set  upon  each  human  soul  ;2 
the  same  union  of  tender  love  with  stern  wisdom.3  And 
even  where  we  encounter  quite  new  elements,  the  teaching 
is  dominated  still  by  the  same  temper.  We  have  here  as 
unmistakable  evidence  as  in  St.  Mark  of  a  clearly  thought- 
out  doctrinal  position.  Jesus  is  represented  as  contrasting 
the  mission  and  teaching  of  His  predecessors  with  His  own  : 
the  law  and  the  prophets  which  lasted  ‘  until  John  '  with 
the  Kingdom  of  God.4  For  this  Kingdom  the  qualifica¬ 
tions  are  not  national  but  spiritual.5  And  Jesus  not  only 
contrasts  Himself  with  the  Baptist  in  relation  to  their 
opposite  methods  of  life,6  but  points  to  His  own  teaching 
as  that  which  fulfils  the  highest  aspirations  of  the  past.7 
And  further,  though  John  is  acknowledged  as  equal  to 
the  greatest  teachers  of  past  time,  it  is  yet  said  that  he 
that  is  but  little  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  greater  than  he.8 
In  the  light  of  this  passage — if  we  allow  ourselves  to  reflect 
upon  the  use  in  such  a  connexion  of  the  very  phrase  the 
*  Kingdom  of  God  1  at  all — it  will  be  hard  to  deny  that  the 
‘  non-Marcan  document  *  represents  Jesus  as  claiming  the 
position  of  Founder  of  the  ‘  Absolute  Religion  \  What 
meaning  does  the  modern  phrase  convey  that  goes  beyond 
what  the  passage  quoted  unmistakably  requires  ?  9 

1  St.  Luke  x.  21,  22  ;  Harnack  §  25. 

2  With  St.  Mark  ix.  42  cf.  St.  Luke  xii.  6,  7  ;  xv.  4-7. 
Harnack  §  34  A,  48,  54.  Cf.  also  ‘  maketh  His  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  on  the  good.’ 

8  St.  Luke  xii.  58,  59  ;  xvii.  1  ;  Harnack  §  39,  53. 

4  St.  Luke  xvi.  16  ;  Harnack,  §  50. 

6  St.  Luke  xiii.  28-29  1  Harnack,  §  42. 

6  St.  Luke  vii.  33,  34  ;  Harnack,  §  15. 

7  St.  Luke  x.  24  ;  Harnack,  §  26. 

8  St.  Luke  vii.  18-28  ;  Harnack,  §  14. 

9  Cf.  St.  Luke  xx.  13. 


So 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


There  is  one  other  aspect  of  the  general  religious  theory 
here  attributed  to  the  Master — namely  His  attitude 
towards  miracles — to  which  only  a  passing  reference  need 
now  be  made  since  it  will  occupy  our  attention  below.1 
It  is  true,  however,  that  His  words  contain  a  view  of  miracle 
far  nearer  to  what  we  might  expect  from  a  Christian 
divine  in  the  eighteenth  century  than  to  the  uncritical 
conceptions  we  are  apt  to  attribute  to  the  first  age. 
Whether  Jesus  actually  performed  miracles  or  not,  the 
doctrines  attributed  to  Him  on  this  subject  by  the  Evangel¬ 
ists  are  far  less  akin  to  primitive  and  magical  notions 
than  to  the  Christian  rationalism  of  Paley.2 


That  the  same  general  impression  of  the  Central  Figure 
which  is  gained  from  St.  Mark  is  confirmed  not  only  in 
many  passages  in  the  Non-Marcan  source,  but  likewise  in 
many  that  are  peculiar  to  the  first  Evangelist  or  the 
third,  will  probably  be  denied  by  no  careful  student. 
It  is  only  necessary  to  mention  here  the  Parable  of  the 
Prodigal  Son,  of  the  Unmerciful  Servant,  of  the  Good 
Samaritan,  and  lastly  the  advice,  when  we  have  done  all 
things  that  are  commanded  us  to  say  ‘  We  are  unprofitable 
servants,  we  have  done  that  which  was  our  duty  to  do ’ ; 3 * * * * 8 


1  Chap,  xviii. 

2  The  *  rationalistic  ’  element — if  we  may  so  call  it — in  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  has  been  too  little  recognized.  For  example, 

Kant’s  interpretation  of  the  question  *  Why  callest  thou  me 

good  ?  ’  seems  far  saner  than  the  explanations  of  more  modern 

interpreters.  ‘  Why  call  ye  Me  (Whom  ye  see)  good.  There 

is  none  good  (the  Archetype — Urbild — of  the  Good)  but  God 

alone  (Whom  ye  see  not).’  Grundlegung,  p.  408. 

8  St.  Luke  xvii.  10. 


CHRIST 


81 


to  suggest  the  wealth  of  confirmation  of  this  assertion 
which  study  of  the  Gospels  can  supply. 

Nor  is  the  argument  affected  by  the  presence  of  a  few 
passages  where  a  false  note  is  struck.  It  is  indeed  sur¬ 
prising,  considering  the  literary  conditions  of  the  time, 
how  few  of  such  passages  can  be  pointed  to  and  common 
sense  will  surely  be  more  impressed  by  the  multitude  of 
passages  which  go  to  form  and  confirm  our  impression 
than  by  the  few  which  contradict  it. 

Again  the  impression  of  originality  is  neither  destroyed 
nor  weakened  by  the  production  of  parallels  from  the 
literature  of  other  religions.  We  may  recall  the  well- 
known  story  of  the  antiquarian  who  after  showing  to  a 

1  The  most  conspicuous  perhaps  of  these  is  in  Luke  xi.  37, 
etc.,  where  the  discourse  against  the  Pharisees  is  described  as 
being  spoken  at  a  Pharisee’s  table.  But  St.  Matt,  xxiii.  1  asserts 
that  the  discourse  was  spoken  ‘  to  the  multitudes  ’.  See  Har- 
nack,  §  33. 

Other  passages  where  incidents  or  phrases  are  alleged  which 
on  various  grounds  have  seemed  to  some  modern  readers  to  be 
unworthy  of  the  Master,  are  the  following  : — Mark  xi.  14  (fig- 
tree)  ;  vi.  11  ('shake  off  dust.’  Cf.  Luke  x.  8-11.  Harnack, 
§  22)  ;  vii.  6  ;  iv.  39  (7 Te^i/Aiocro  cf.  i.  25  and  Matt.  xxii.  34  and 
see  also  Matt.  viii.  26  ;  Luke  viii.  24)  ;  v.  12-13.  (Note,  how¬ 
ever,  that  the  view  of  some  commentators,  that  the  destruction 
of  the  swine  was  no  part  of  our  Lord’s  intention,  finds  confirma¬ 
tion  in  His  immediate  compliance  with  the  request  of  the  people 
(v.  18)).  Luke  viii.  46  (but  cf.  Mark  v.  30)  ;  Mark  xi.  15  ;  ix. 
19  ;  xiv.  61  and  xv.  5  (but  cf.  Isaiah  liii.  7)  ;  xii.  38  ;  Luke  xi. 
41  (according  to  one  interpretation).  Can  any  one  seriously 
desire  to  add  Mark  xiv.  21  ?  It  is  to  be  noted  that,  in  Dr.  Har- 
nack’s  reconstructed  ‘  Source  ’  (Q),  not  a  single  passage  occurs 
which  any  reader  is  likely  to  wish  to  add  to  this  list.  Yet  it 
would  be  absurd  to  argue  that  the  principles  on  which  Dr.  Harnack 
has  proceeded  make  this  result  a  foregone  conclusion.  His 
method  is,  so  far  as  the  main  outlines  are  concerned,  purely 
textual  and  objective. 


G 


82 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


sculptor  friend  how  one  by  one  the  characteristic  fea¬ 
tures  of  Greek  sculpture  had  been  anticipated  by  the 
Egyptians,  the  Assyrians,  and  the  Hittites,  exclaimed  in 
triumph  that  the  Greeks  had  in  fact  invented  nothing. 
'  Nothing  ’  rejoined  the  sculptor,  ‘  except  the  beautiful/ 
Similarly,  even  if  we  could  show  for  each  saying  of  Christ 
a  parallel  in  non-Christian  literature,  we  should  not  alter 
the  fact  that  Christianity  is  a  unique  phenomenon,  and 
that  the  teaching  recorded  in  the  Gospels  is  its  starting- 
point.  Jesus  stands  out  as  the  greatest,  nay  as  the  first 
effective,  exponent  of  spiritual  religion  in  the  distinctive 
Christian  sense  :  and  also  of  the  general  ideal  of  human 
conduct  which  alone  is  adequate  thereto. 

The  latter  fact  is  hardly  less  important  than  the  former. 
The  connexion  between  spiritual  religion  and  the  Good  Will 
we  have  already  observed.  But  what  definition  of  a  Good 
Will  can  we  frame  which  can  be  seriously  and  practically 
accepted  by  modern  religion,  except  that  which  describes 
it  as  a  Will  devoted  to  the  carrying  out  of  the  Ideal  set  up 
by  Christ  ? 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 


HE  teaching,  then,  which  is  attributed  to  Jesus  in 


1  the  Synoptic  Gospels  is  very  far  from  confirming 
the  notion  that  He  was  a  mere  ‘  Syrian  of  the  first  century 
with  a  message  for  His  own  time  alone  \  Moreover  a 
careful  reading  of  these  Gospels  throws  doubt  on  many  of 
the  conclusions  that  have  been  drawn  from  His  use  of 
Eschatological  language. 

Did  He  ‘  elaborately  prophesy  what  did  not  take 
place  ’ — His  own  return  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  before 
the  first  generation  of  His  followers  had  passed  away,  or 
even  before  His  twelve  disciples  should  have  come  back 
from  their  earliest  mission  ?  The  charge  is  unproven  and 
incapable  of  proof.  There  are  few  single  texts  of  which 
we  can  say  positively,  ‘  Here  we  have  the  ifisissima 
verba  of  the  Master.’  There  are  fewer  still  where  we  can 
completely  know  the  context.  Every  theory — orthodox 
and  unorthodox  alike — as  to  the  order  and  connexion  of 
events  in  the  life  of  Christ  has  its  difficulties — its  scrip¬ 
tural  texts  v/hich  it  must  ignore  or  explain  away.  There 
are  texts  which  seem  to  imply  a  speedy  return  :  there 
are  texts  also  which  imply  that  the  Christian  Church  will 
run  a  prolonged  course  :  1  and  it  is  not  always  easy  to 

1  E.g.,  Matt.  xxi.  43  ;  Mark  xiii.  7,  8  ;  Mark  xiii.  10.  With 
airoSry/xos  Mark  xiii.  34,  cf.  air eSrjfxrjcrc  Mark  xii.  i  (where  a 
prolonged  absence  is  implied).  Matt.  xxiv.  48. 


83 


84  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

decide,  in  this  case  or  in  others,  which  class  of  texts1  is 
the  most  trustworthy. 

With  regard  to  Christ’s  language  concerning  His 
Messianic  claims  there  is  need  for  caution  in  a  very  special 
degree.  The  situation  was  of  necessity  an  extraordinarily 
delicate  one.  Unless  He  was  to  disavow  Messianic  con¬ 
ceptions  and  hopes  altogether,  He  must  needs  claim  to  be 
Himself  the  Messiah.  Yet,  on  any  theory,  there  must 
have  been  some  elements  in  the  popular  conception  which 
He  could  not  adopt.  Let  us  admit  that  the  current 
Jewish  conceptions  of  His  day  were  less  unspiritual  than 
has  been  sometimes  assumed.  Let  us  admit  that  Jesus 
Himself  was  more  sympathetic  towards  belief  in  the 
‘  supernatural  ’  than  are  some  modern  divines  who  have 
tried  to  assimilate  His  views  to  their  own.  He  must  still 
have  had  need  to  choose  His  language  carefully.  Unwil¬ 
ling  to  speak  chillingly  of  hopes  which  had  in  them  much 
of  good,  He  may  yet — so  conscious  is  He  of  the  slowness 
of  spiritual  progress,2  so  fixed  in  His  avoidance  of  short 
methods  3 — have  definitely  refused  to  foster  what  He 
would  not  too  decisively  condemn.4  It  is  only  natural 
that,  in  a  situation  of  such  complexity,  His  words  should 
at  times  have  been  misunderstood  and  consequently 
misreported.  This,  perhaps,  then  is  one  of  the  cases  where 
the  results  of  German  diligence  may  be  modified  by  the 
application  of  English  caution  and  commonsense. 

1  So  with  interpretations  also.  In  some  cases  we  may  say 
that  the  meaning  is  clear  and  that  there  seems  no  adequate 
motive  for  invention,  distortion  or  mistake  :  but  such  an  assertion 
can  seldom  be  made  with  absolute  confidence,  since  some  currents 
of  Christian  opinion  in  the  First  Century  are  necessarily  unknown 
to  us. 

2  Mark  iv.  27,  28,  29,  31. 

3  Matt.  iv.  3,  6,  9. 


4  Cf.  Matt.  xiii.  29. 


THE  HISTORICAI  JESUS 


85 


But  we  are  not  left  with  mere  doubts  and  negations. 
There  is  one  fact  which  is  far  more  certain  than  the  ac¬ 
curacy  or  correct  interpretation  of  any  isolated  passage : 
namely  that,  in  scene  after  scene  and  in  phrase  after 
phrase — indeed  with  very  few  lapses  from  perfect  con¬ 
sistency  1 — the  Synoptic  Gospels  describe  a  character  and 
a  doctrine  which  meets  our  own  highest  aspirations, 
‘  the  perfection  2  of  an  ideal  above  and  beyond  which  we 
cannot  get/  Jesus,  we  are  warned,  is  not  to  be  modern¬ 
ized.  But  if  He  was  not  a  modern  man,  we  assuredly  are 
modern  men  ourselves  :  and  the  fact  remains  that  we 
find  in  the  Gospels  (not  in  the  form  of  abstract  principles 
but  in  a  vivid  personal  presentation)  an  embodiment  of 
what  a  great  part  of  the  civilized  world  does  still  undoubt¬ 
edly  recognize  as  the  highest  conception  of  morality  and 
religion.  The  historical  significance  of  this  fact  can  hardly 
be  overstated. 

‘  The  modern  study  of  the  Gospels'  it  has  been  said 
‘  has  recovered  for  us  a  Portrait/  While  to  many  devout 
souls  in  all  ages  the  Portrait  has  been  clear  enough,  to 
others  it  has  been  long  obscured.  Yet  if  for  some  of  us 
an  effort  is  needed  to  grasp  the  individuality  of  Jesus  as 
the  Gospels  present  Him,  the  effort  is  one  which  may  be 
made  with  good  hope  of  success.  Indeed  a  simple  experi¬ 
ment  will  be  enough  to  show  that  most  people  have  latent 
in  their  minds  a  far  clearer  conception  of  the  character 
of  the  Saviour  than  they  are  themselves  explicitly  aware 

1  Cf.  last  note  to  chap.  ix.  What  is  here  said  as  to  consistency 
refers,  of  course,  to  the  character  and  doctrine  of  the  Master  ; 
not  to  the  order  of  events. 

*  It  is  important  to  interpret  this  word  with  reference  to  the 
qualification  expressed  above.  The  ideal  is  not  ‘  perfect  *  in 
the  sense  that  it  contains  explicit  instruction  upon  every  moral 
question. 


86 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


of.  Let  us  try  to  put  into  His  mouth  phrases  uttered  by 
others  whose  circumstances  were  externally  similar  to  His. 
There  are  no  persons  in  history,  perhaps,  whose  circum¬ 
stances  have  so  much  general  resemblance  to  those  of 
Jesus,  as  Socrates  and  Francis  of  Assisi.  Yet  we  cannot 
without  an  immediate  sense  of  incongruity  imagine 
Jesus  professing  ironical  ignorance  in  the  manner  of 
Socrates,  or  calling  Himself  the  ‘  little  poor  man  of 
Nazareth  *  in  the  manner  of  St.  Francis.  It  is  surely  no 
accident  that  where  He  speaks  of  Himself  in  the  third 
person  it  is  by  the  statelier  title  of  the  ‘  Son  of  Man  \  Our 
conception  of  His  individuality,  then,  must  really  be 
pretty  clear,  if  we  can  so  instantaneously  perceive  these 
incongruities.  Thus  perhaps  little  is  needed  except  that 
we  should  make  the  impression  which  we  already  possess 
fuller  and  more  definite. 

It  is  true  that  a  vivid  portrait  may  be  fictitious  :  and 
even  where  the  character  as  a  whole  is  true  to  life,  many  of 
the  incidents  in  which  the  presentation  of  it  is  embodied 
may  be  sheer  inventions  or  mistakes.  But  it  is  the 
character  of  Jesus,  rather  than  His  history,  which  concerns 
us  here  :  and  before  deciding  whether  the  description  is 
fictitious  or  historical,  the  first  step  is  to  perceive  the 
unity  and  uniqueness  of  the  character  itself  as  the  Synoptic 
writers  describe  it. 

The  unity  of  the  character  is,  if  possible,  even  more 
striking  than  the  unity  of  the  teaching.  Jesus — it  has 
been  well  said — ‘  was  what  He  taught.’  Throughout  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  He  is  consistently  described  as  One 
Whose  whole  soul  is  possessed  with  that  conception  of  the 
'  one  thing  needful  ’  which  we  have  already  seen  to  be  the 
keynote  of  His  teaching.  The  sole  demand  which  He 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS  87 

makes  of  all  those  who  come  to  Him  is  that  they  should 
have  the  spirit  exhibited  by  Mary  of  Bethany — the  spirit 
of  Christian  discipleship.  Whether  this  spirit  exhibits 
itself  as  penitence,  as  docility,1  or  as  the  humble  self¬ 
surrender  of  those  who  leave  all  to  follow  Him, 2 — whether 
it  is  seen  in  the  scribe  who  perceives  that  right  dispositions 
of  mind  are  more  important  than  external  works,3  in  the 
centurion  who  concludes  that  the  power  of  faith  is  at  least 
as  independent  of  distance  as  the  discipline  of  the  Roman 
army, 4  or  in  the  four  men  whose  ‘  love  forgetting  manners  ’ 
tears  down  the  roof  where  He  is  teaching  5 — an  open  mind, 
a  pure  heart,  a  zealous  eagerness  for  good,  never  fails  to 
find  from  Him  a  welcome.  On  one  occasion,  with  defi¬ 
nite  symbolical  intent,  He  sets  a  child  in  the  midst  of  His 
disciples  ;6  on  another — in  a  manner  not  unusual  with 
St.  Francis  but  not  elsewhere  recorded  of  the  Master 
Himself — He  breaks  out  aloud  into  an  ecstasy  of  joy7 
at  the  thought  that  it  is  to  the  simple  mind  only  that 
heavenly  truth  is  made  known.  Similarly  when  His 
withdrawal  from  the  scene  of  His  preaching  is  forestalled 8 
by  the  eagerness  of  the  multitude,  He  dismisses  His  project 
of  rest  from  His  mind  in  a  sudden  outburst  of  compassion. 

'Indeed  it  is  just  in  His  occasional  outbursts  of  strong 
and  sudden  feeling — whether  of  compassion,  grief,  anger, 
love  or  joy — that  the  ruling  principle  of  His  life  stands  out 
most  clearly.  His  grief  at  hardness  of  heart  is  as  con¬ 
spicuous  as  His  pity  for  sorrow.  At  an  example  of 
spiritual  obtuseness  joined  with  familiarity  with  religious 
language,  He  sighs  deeply  in  His  spirit.  6  When  the 

1  Luke  x.  42.  2  Mark  x.  29.  3  Mark  xii.  34. 

4  Matt.  viii.  9.  5  Luke  v.  19,  20.  6  Mark  ix.  36. 

7  Luke  x.  21,  cf.  Fioretti,  ch.  viii.,  ch.  x.  etc. 

8  Mark  vi.  31-34.  9  Mark  viii.  12. 


88 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


disciples  assume  that  babes  will  be  of  no  interest  to  Him, 
He  is  much  displeased.1  When  on  the  other  hand  He 
finds,  even  in  one  unready  to  make  the  supreme  sacrifice 
which  is  required  of  him,  a  genuine  desire  for  better  things 
‘  looking  upon  him  He  loves  him/  2  In  every  case  of 
real  insight  He  awards  praise  with  the  outspoken  warmth 
which  belongs  to  the  generous  nature  to  which  praise¬ 
giving  is  a  delight.3 

Precisely  the  same  general  view  of  life  is  expressed — 
with  entire  consistency  of  spirit  amid  a  wide  variety  of 
phrase  and  circumstance — in  His  aphorisms,  His  parables, 
His  actions  ;  in  His  reception  of  the  woman  that  was  a  sin¬ 
ner,4  in  the  rebuke  conveyed  to  His  disciples  by  means 
of  the  parable  of  the  labourers  in  the  vineyard,5  in  the 
declaration  that  there  is  more  joy  in  heaven  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth  than  over  ninety  and  nine  impenitent 
righteous.6  In  this  refusal  to  judge  conduct  by  mere 
results  He  comes  into  conflict  with  the  common  morality 
of  the  modem,7  no  less  than  with  that  of  the  ancient  world. 

1  Mark  x.  14.  2  Mark  x.  21. 

3  Mark  xii.  34  ;  Matt.  xvi.  17. 

4  Luke  vii.  37. 

5  Matt.  xx.  12  ;  cf.  xix.  27,  30. 

6  Luke  xv.  7. 

7  It  is  necessary  to  insist  upon  this  because  it  is  continually 
denied.  The  notion  that  the  Gospels  teach  only  those  common¬ 
places  of  morality  with  which  no  civilized  religion  can  dispense 
is  common  still,  even  in  circles  not  professedly  hostile  to  Chris¬ 
tianity.  A  high  dignitary  of  the  Church  is  reported  to  have 
declared  recently  that  at  the  time  of  the  Crucifixion  the  disciples 
had  had  no  decisively  new  teaching,  that  nothing  had  then  been 
said  which  could  have  made  them  Christians  rather  than  Jews, 
and  that  the  novelty  of  Christianity  consisted  not  in  Christ’s 
teaching,  but  solely  in  the  fact  of  His  resurrection.  Even  the 
attacks  of  Nietzsche  are  less  unedifying  than  such  statements 
as  these  :  since  he  at  least  recognizes  our  Lord  as  a  great  Teacher, 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 


89 

For  those,  however,  who  have  ears  to  hear,  His  comment 
on  the  Widow’s  offering  is  a  triumphant  vindication  of 
His  principles  against  His  critics.  While  the  work  of  His 
disciples  is  the  pursuit  of  justice  and  mercy — by  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them — it  is  yet  the  fidelity  of  the 
pursuit  rather  than  its  success  by  which  He  chiefly  judges. 
The  Good  Will — the  honest  and  good  heart — this  alone 
is  the  pearl  of  greatest  price  ;  and  the  mere  paucity  of  its 
achievement  in  no  way  detracts  from  its  value. 

The  same  central  conception  is  the  key  also  to  His 
polemic.  While  demanding  of  every  disciple  the  thor¬ 
ough-going  sincerity  which  *  counting  the  cost  ’  is  willing 
to  perform  humble  services,1  to  ‘bear  the  cross’,  to 
‘  endure  to  the  end  He  resists  with  indignation  the  impos¬ 
ition  of  any  other  demands  whatever.  His  zeal  for  the 
‘  one  thing  needful  ’  has,  as  its  obverse  side,  a  burning 
wrath  against  those  who  represent  as  needful  that  which 
is  not  so — against  those  who  ‘  condemn  the  guiltless  ’  2 
and  bind  heavy  burdens  on  the  shoulders  of  men.3  True 
obedience  consists,  not  in  refusing  the  demands  of  Caesar, 
but  in  giving  what  is  due  to  God.4 

His  sense  of  the  supreme  value  of  spiritual  religion  is 
shown,  perhaps,  even  more  clearly  still  in  His  language 
concerning  those  tendencies  in  human  nature  by  which 
spiritual  religion  is  in  every  age  opposed — the  unforgiving 
spirit,  lust,  pride,  covetousness.  It  is  here — says  Mr. 
Conybeare  5  in  felicitous  language — that  Jesus  ‘  sharpened 
His  precepts  to  a  point,  and  imported  an  almost  para- 

as  one  who  taught  something  that  was  not  already  well  known 
before  He  came. 

1  Matt.  xxv.  40,  etc.,  etc. 

3  Matt,  xxiii.  4  ;  Luke  xi.  46. 

5  Myth,  Magic  and  Morals,  p.  162. 


2  Matt.  xii.  7. 
4  Mark  xii.  17. 


90 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


doxical  vigour  into  His  utterances,  just  because  He 
desired  to  raise  a  hedge  against  the  most  common  forms 
of  selfishness/  Against  the  pressure  of  petty  cares — the 
‘  lusts  of  other  things  entering  in  ’ — He  recommends  a 
freedom  from  anxiety,  a  perpetual  watchfulness  in  regard 
to  man’s  highest  interests,1  a  general  attitude  of  ‘  detach¬ 
ment  ’,  of  independence  of  circumstances,2  such  as  only  a 
concentration  of  mind  upon  the  one  thing  needful  can 
produce.  *  Be  not  anxious  what  ye  shall  eat  :3  be  not 
anxious  what  ye  shall  say  : 4  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of 
God  and  His  righteousness/  In  His  service  there  can 
be  no  divided  allegiance,  and  no  neutrality.  ‘  He  that 
is  not  with  Me  is  against  Me/  5  ‘  Be  not  anxious,  for  ye 

cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon/  6 


The  whole  life,  then,  of  Jesus  as  the  Gospels  portray  it 
is  an  embodiment  of  the  principle  which  puts  '  first  things 
first  \  Yet  He  is  in  one  respect  markedly  unlike  others 
who  have  been  conspicuous  for  their  success  in  seizing 
this  principle  and  applying  it.  Those  teachers  with 
whom  the  supreme  interests  of  the  spirit  have  been 
habitually  predominant,  incline  for  the  most  part  to  a 
quality  of  feeling  which  can  best  be  described,  in  Northern 
idiom,  as  '  dourness  \  Of  Luther,  of  St.  Augustine,  even 
of  St.  Paul,  there  maybe  quoted  phrases  which  carry  with 
them  something  that  is  repellent.  Kant— not  wholly 
without  ground — was  accused  of  pedantry  by  his  most 
distinguished  disciple.  Newman — for  whom  there  were 

1  Mark  xiii.  33,  37,  etc.,  etc. 

2  Mark  xiii.  2,  5,  7,  11.  ‘Be  not  anxious  ’  though  the  Temple 
of  God  be  ‘  thrown  down’. 

3  Matt.  vi.  31. 

5  Matt.  xii.  30. 


4  Mark  xiii.  11. 

6  Matt.  vi.  24,  25. 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 


9i 


but  two  ‘  supreme  and  luminously  self-evident  beings  ’ 
God  and  his  own  soul — exhibits  in  some  contexts  a 
‘  doumess  ’  which  is  almost  inhuman.  None  of  these 
great  men  would  very  naturally  be  described  as  ‘  children 
of  the  bridechamber  ’.  The  attitude  of  Jesus  becomes 
only  the  plainer  by  the  contrast.  '  To  him  that  worketh 
not  ’  says  St.  Paul  ‘  but  belie veth  on  Him  that  justifieth 
the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  reckoned  for  righteousness.’  Al¬ 
though  if  we  compare  this  Pauline  phrase  with  the  words 
of  Jesus  to  the  dying  robber  we  shall  find  no  essential 
difference  of  meaning,  there  is  assuredly  a  quite  infinite 
difference  in  gracefulness.  And  is  not  this  gracefulness  of 
utterance  the  symbol  of  a  liberality  of  view, — not  acquired 
as  in  the  Apostle’s  case  through  the  turmoil  of  an  inward 
revolution,  but  rather  the  native  endowment  of  His  spirit — 
which  appears  also  in  Plis  tolerance,1  in  the  conspicuous 
gentleness  of  His  rebukes,2  in  His  courteous  recognition 
of  what  is  good  in  men  even  where  there  is  need  of  warning 
and  condemnation,3  in  His  tenderness  to  the  religious 
system  which  He  is  come  to  supersede,4  in  His  sympathy 
with  the  natural  feelings  of  the  heart  even  when  these 
are  expressed  in  an  entirely  unconventional  manner,5 
in  His  recognition  of  the  value,  not  only  of  human  souls 
but  also,  in  their  place,  of  the  lives  of  animals  ?6  To 
Jesus  as  the  Synoptists  portray  Him  the  gifts  of  nature 

1  Maik  ix.  39,  40.  The  contradiction  suspected  by  some 
between  Mark  ix.  40  and  Matt.  xii.  30  arises  only  if  it  is  assumed 
that  the  question  is  ‘  Are  neutrals  to  be  classed  as  friends  or 
foes  ?  ’ — not  if  it  is  recognized  that  there  are  no  neutrals. 

2  E.g.  Mark  xiv.  37  ;  Luke  x.  41  ;  Luke  xxii.  31,  61  ;  xi.  28. 

3  E.g.  Luke  xxii.  28,  cf.  24  ;  Mark  xii.  34. 

4  E.g.  Mark  i.  44  ;  Mark  xi.  16,  17. 

5  Luke  vii.  45  ;  Mark  ii.  4,  5. 

8  Luke  xii.  6. 


92 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


seem  good,  as  well  as  the  gifts  of  grace.  Conscious  of  the 
universal  sinfulness  of  the  human  race,1  He  yet  recog¬ 
nizes  the  natural  innocence  of  childhood ;  and  finds, 
among  those  born  in  sin  and  not  yet  of  an  age  to  make 
their  personal  peace  with  God,  a  purity  of  heart  akin  to 
that2  which  is  the  supreme  qualification  for  His  Kingdom. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  Portrait  also  which  must 
not  be  lost  sight  of.  If  the  life  of  Jesus  revealed  to  man¬ 
kind  the  supreme  lesson  which  it  has  been  the  glory  of 
St.  Paul,  of  Luther,  and  of  Kant,  to  have  developed  and 
defended  in  special  contexts — if  this  lesson  was  taught  by 
Jesus  with  an  ease  and  charm  which  they  conspicuously 
lack,  and  taught  by  Him  to  many  to  whom  neither  St. 
Paul,  Luther,  nor  Kant  can  ever  be  intelligible — then 
not  only  is  the  life  of  Jesus  the  supreme  achievement  in 
the  history  of  religion,  but  His  achievement  is  intellectual 
as  well  as  moral. 

His  intellectual  pre-eminence  is,  in  fact,  as  noteworthy 
in  its  way  as  His  holiness.  A  modern  writer  has  spoken 
of  His  belief  in  His  Messianic  office  as  an  '  obsession  \  A 
more  infelicitous  phrase  it  would  be  hard  to  select.  The 
impression  which  the  narrative  consistently  conveys  is  of 
One  Who  teaches  truly,  not  by  happy  accident  or  passing 
inspiration,  but  because  He  knows  the  ultimate  secret  of 
right  moral  thinking.  His  teaching  is  based  on  princi¬ 
ples,  and  He  never  hesitates  to  give  His  reasons.  Resem¬ 
bling  the  Mystics  in  the  penetrating  power  of  His  phrases. 
He  has  no  resemblance  to  them  at  all  in  their  uncon¬ 
sciousness  of  the  processes  by  which  their  knowledge  is 
reached.  Nor  again  does  He  resemble  the  philosopher 


1  Luke  xiii.  3,  5. 


2  Mark  x.  14  ;  cf.  Matt,  xviii.  10. 


93 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 

spoken  of  by  Plato  who  is  so  blinded  by  the  light  from 
whence  he  came  that  he  cannot  see  clearly  in  terrestrial 
darkness.  His  clear  and  critical  estimate  of  the  false 
religious  teaching  around  Him  is  joined  with  a  general 
knowledge  of  the  world,  an  ability  to  deal  wisely  with  men, 
a  rapid  insight  into  the  thoughts  of  his  opponents1,  an 
easy  readiness  in  dealing  promptly  with  cunningly  devised 
objections,2  an  amazing  fertility  in  the  production  of 
felicitous  arguments,  similes,  and  illustrations,  an  attitude 
towards  the  f  supernatural  ’  which  can  only  be  described  as 
‘  modern  \  Though  He  is  represented  as  believing  in 
miracles  and  also  working  them,  He  is  wholly  at  variance 
with  His  contemporaries  in  His  estimate  of  their  worth.3 

1  Matt.  ix.  4  ;  xii.  25  ;  Luke  v.  22  ;  vi.  8  ;  ix.  4 7,  etc. 

3  Mark  xii.  17,  24. 

8  ‘  In  this  rejoice  not  that  the  spirits  are  subject  unto  you  ’ 
(Luke  x.  20).  The  difference  between  our  Saviour’s  attitude 
towards  the  supernatural,  and  that  of  His  disciples,  can  more 
readily  be  felt  than  described.  A  story  which  represented 
the  Master  as  allowing  His  action  to  be  dictated,  as  St.  Paul’s 
was,  by  a  dream,  would  be  felt  to  be  quite  out  of  keeping.  It 
is  difficult,  therefore,  to  accept  Mr.  Streeter’s  guess  that  an 
'  audible  voice  divine  ’  heard  at  the  Baptism  was  the  decisive 
factor  in  leading  our  Saviour  to  adopt  the  Messianic  role  [Foun¬ 
dations,  p.  100).  If  (p.  98  note)  ‘  the  stories  of  the  Baptism 
and  the  Temptation  are  ultimately  derived  from  an  account 
given  to  the  disciples  by  our  Lord  Himself  ’,  why  should  we 
suspect  that  the  Voice  from  Heaven  is  any  less  a  ‘  part  of  the 
parable  ’  than  the  visible  Tempter  ?  (Matt.  iii.  17  ;  iv.  3).  This, 
and  a  similar  passage  on  p.  123,  seem  less  convincing  than  other 
parts  of  Mr.  Streeter’s  valuable  essay.  There  -were,  surely,  quite 
enough  ‘  rational  ’  motives  for  the  visit  to  Jerusalem  to  make 
it  needless  to  look  for  merely  '  ps3~chological  ’  ones.  Those  who 
are  acquainted  with  the  phenomena  of  “  leading  ”  (p.  123  note) 
at  first  hand  will  best  be  in  position  to  form  a  general  judgment 
on  this  subject.  They,  if  they  want  scriptural  analogies  for 
these  modern  experiences — which  are  often  quite  genuine  and 


94 


RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Indeed  through  passage  after  passage  we  may  trace  the 
signs  of  a  rightness  of  temper  and  outlook  which  is  in 
itself  an  intellectual  virtue  as  truly  as  it  is  a  moral  one. 

No  less  remarkable  than  this  correctness  of  insight  is 
the  air  of  confident  assurance  which  accompanies  it,  and 
the  fact  that  this  self-confidence  is  accepted  by  the 
reader  without  resentment.  Jesus  speaks  at  all  times — 
even  when  dealing  with  the  most  intricate  problems1 — 
as  One  who  is  conscious  of  an  unerring  certainty  of  aim. 
Joined  with  the  utmost  humility  and  gentleness,  is  a 
serene  self-possession,  a  confidence  in  His  own  judg¬ 
ment  which  permits  Him,  whether  He  speaks  in  praise 
or  blame,  to  use  even  the  strongest  expressions  without 
misgiving.  It  is  quite  in  keeping  with  this  that  at  a 
certain  time  His  opponents  should  be  afraid  to  ask  Him 
any  further  question,2  and  that  a  similar  awe  of  Him 
should  be  ascribed  to  His  own  disciples.3 

He  makes,  too,  the  highest  claims  on  His  own  behalf. 
He  speaks  of  Himself  as  the  Bridegroom,  the  Heir, 
the  Son  of  man  before  Whom  all  members  of  God’s 
Kingdom  are  to  stand,4  Who  is  to  come  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven,  in  Whose  blood  God’s  new  covenant  is  to  be 
made  with  His  people.  And  yet — sensitive  as  the 
modern  reader  is  to  the  wearisomeness  of  the  ‘  too  fault¬ 
less  ’  hero — was  ever  a  reader  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  led 
to  complain,  either  that  the  claims  of  their  Central  Figure 

quite  edifying — are  likely  to  turn  rather  to  the  Acts  than  to 
the  Gospels.  Why  should  we  assume  that  He  Who  commended 
the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  (Matt.  x.  16)  disdained  to  ‘  study 
tactics  and  opportunities  ’  ? 

1  Mark  ii.  17,  etc.  2  Mark  xii.  34. 

3  Mark  ix.  32.  4  Luke  xxi.  36. 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS  95 

are  intolerable,  or  that  an  occasional  error  or  fault  would 
be  welcome  as  a  relief  ? 

Why  is  it  then  that  here,  for  the  first  and  last  time 
in  literature,  we  lave  ready  to  accept  a  hero  free  from 
blemishes,  without  the  sense  that  a  few  faults  and  the 
consciousness  of  them  would  make  him  more  attractive 
and  more  human  ?  The  reason  is  partly  that  in  Jesus  the 
air  of  intellectual  ascendancy  is  wholly  dissevered  from 
the  common  faults  of  the  intellectual  man.  In  the  case 
of  Socrates  a  certain  touch  of  the  pride  of  intellect  may 
be  observed  even  amid  the  affecting  scenes  which  precede 
his  death.1  Jesus  deals  tenderly  not  only  with  His 
male  disciples  but  also  with  the  women  who  bewailed  and 
lamented  Him.  He  affects  no  Stoical  superiority  to  suffer¬ 
ing.  He  faces  death  and  pain,  not  only  with  a  confessed 
oppression  of  spirit2  incompatible  with  the  Stoic  temper, 
but  also  with  a  profound  solemnity  of  manner  consonant 
with  the  Jewish  sense  of  the  connexion  between  suffering 
and -sin. 3  He  can  be  f  sore  amazed  ’  as  well  as  very  heavy, 
and — though  amid  all  distractions  He  speaks  as  if  His  will 
within  were  throughout  steady  and  undistracted — He  yet 
feels  to  the  full  the  weight  both  of  His  sufferings  and  of  the 
problem  it  carries  with  it.4  In  the  whole  story  of  the 
Passion  there  is  exhibited  at  once  clear-minded  self-pos¬ 
session  and  extremest  human  tenderness,  even  when  at 
the  last  stage  of  mortal  weakness  the  darkness  invades 
His  soul. 

But  the  chief  reason  why  in  the  Jesus  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  we  do  not  feel  that  faultlessness  is  itself  a  fault, 
is  that  we  have  here  so  convincing  a  picture  of  One  who 

1  Phaedo.  60.  A.  B.  2  Mark  xiv.  34. 

3  Which  He  is  represented  as  teaching  explicitly  elsewhere. 

4  Mark  xv.  34. 


96  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

stands  for  interests  which  are  not  personal  but  general. 
His  emotions — '  personal  ’  indeed  in  the  sense  that  He 
feels  them  with  intensity — may  yet  be  called  ‘  impersonal ' 
in  the  utter  absence  from  His  mind  of  all  self-seeking. 
His  indignation  is  so  impressive  just  because  it  is  so  disin¬ 
terested.1  His  rebukes  and  His  commendations  are  far 
removed  from  the  wounded  and  gratified  vanity  of  the 
teacher  who  desires  personal  success.  Personal  homage 
to  Himself  is  no  substitute  for  loyalty  to  His  principles.2 
He  rejects  even  the  simplest  title  of  praise.3  When  a 
hearer  blesses  the  Mother  who  bore  Him,  He  gently 
points  out  to  whom  it  is  that  blessing  truly  belongs. 
When  Peter  for  once  plays  the  courtier,4  he  receives  the 
sternest  of  all  the  rebukes  which  Jesus  is  ever  recorded 
to  have  uttered.  He  rebukes  His  disciples  no  less  than 
His  opponents,  and  praises  faith  equally  in  those  who  are 
not  His  followers  and  in  those  who  are.  Resistance  to  His 
mission  and  work  He  treats  as  blameworthy,  not  primarily 
because  it  is  a  resistance  to  His  own  person,  but  because 
it  is  a  resistance  to  the  Inward  Voice.5  The  blasphemy 
against  the  Son  of  Man  is  a  light  offence  compared  with 
the  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost.  Thus  there  is 
nothing  to  suggest  that  in  destroying  one  *  religion  of 
authority  ’  He  is  setting  up  another.  When  He  calls  men 
to  Himself,  He  demands  an  eye  open  to  read  the  signs  of 
the  times  ;6  He  desires  that  even  of  themselves  they  may 
judge  that  which  is  right ; 7  He  never  asks  for  blind  obedi- 

1  Mark  viii.  33,  etc.  2  Luke  vi.  46. 

3  Mark  x.  18.  4  Matt.  xvi.  22. 

5  Luke  xii.  10  ;  cf.  Mark  iii.  28.  St.  Luke’s  development 

of  the  doctrine  is  covered,  after  all,  by  St.  Mark’s  general  state¬ 

ment. 

6  Matt.  xvi.  3. 


7  Luke  xii.  57. 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 


97 


ence  to  His  personal  authority  as  such.  Rather  it  would 
be  true  to  say  that  He  ever  forgets  Himself  in  His  mission  : 
that  His  Father’s  work  fills  His  whole  horizon  :  that  He 
wins  the  trust  of  His  disciples  by  leading  them  to  con¬ 
tinual  trust  in  God  :  that  they  who  receive  Jesus  receive 
not  Jesus  but  Him  that  sent  Him. 1 


And  thus — as  the  separate  traits  unite  in  our  minds  into 
a  single  Character — the  effect  produced  is  of  a  personality 
unlike  any  other  in  the  world  :  of  One  unlike  other  men 
and  yet  unlike  them  in  being  more  attractively  human. 
That  He  stands,  as  no  one  else  can  do,  for  the  Moral  Law, 
that  He  evokes  response  from  humanity  on  its  best  side, 
is  vividly  expressed  in  the  oft-quoted  saying  of  Lamb, 
that  whereas  if  Shakespeare  entered  the  room  we  should 
all  stand — ‘if  Jesus  entered  the  room  we  should  all  kneel.' 
If  we  would  see  how  pre-eminent  a  figure  the  Jesus  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  really  is,  let  us  contrast  Him,  on  the  one 
hand  with  other  representations  which  purport  to  be 
pictures  of  the  same  original,2  and  on  the  other  hand 
with  all  that  we  know  or  have  read  of  other  men.  Among 
His  followers  in  especial  there  have  been  noble  types  of 
humanity  in  plenty — holy  priests,  pure-minded  ascetics, 
learned  divines.  Yet  His  strongest  attraction  for  the 
general  mass  of  the  human  race  has  lain  in  the  fact,  not  of 
His  resemblance  to  these  types,  but  of  His  difference  from 
them  :  in  the  fact  that  His  natural  sympathies  are  pre¬ 
dominantly  with  the  Publican  and  not  with  the  Pharisee. 
If  we  may  venture  to  apply  to  Him  the  phrases  which  are 
appropriate  to  certain  schools  of  His  disciples,  we  may 

1  Mark  ix.  37  ;  cf.  x.  18. 

2  Esp.  the  Jesus  of  Renan’s  '  Life 

H 


98  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

describe  Him  as  a  Protestant  without  pedantry,  a  Liberal 
without  sentimentality,  a  Franciscan  without  childishness. 
No  intellectualist,  no  mystic,  no  formalist,  no  ascetic, — 
for  as  He  is  without  all  other  pedantry,  so  also  He  is 
without  the  pedantry  of  renunciation1 — He  differs  broadly 
from  every  type  of  ‘  professional  ’  religious  man.  Fitted, 
as  no  one  else  is,  to  be  our  Great  High  Priest  in  Heaven,  He 
is  yet  eminently  a  laic  upon  earth. 

Is  it  then  conceivable  or  not  that  the  Character  of  Jesus 
as  it  appears  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  is  the  result  of 
conscious  or  unconscious  fiction  ? 1  It  is  surely  hard  to 
believe  that  a  character  so  marked  in  its  originality  and 
charm,  is  the  mere  product  of  the  embellishment  by  the 
first  Christian  disciples  of  a  more  commonplace  reality. 
The  invention  of  a  character  possessing  genuine  individual¬ 
ity — of  a  ‘  character  ’  as  distinct  from  a  ‘  type  ’ — is  rare 
even  in  the  greatest  works  of  genius.  Where  a  character, 
real  or  fictitious,  is  already  known  to  us  by  a  multitude 
of  sayings  and  characteristic  incidents,  the  invention  of 
further  stories  in  the  same  vein  is  often  comparatively 
easy.  There  are  indeed  few  men  of  strong  personality 
around  whose  names  such  stories  do  not  grow  up.  But 
is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  original  sketch  of  the 
character  of  Jesus  was  anything  else  than  a  transcript  from 
life  ?  The  reader  of  the  Platonic  dialogues  may  often  be 
in  the  greatest  doubt  as  to  how  many  of  the  recorded 
sayings  of  Socrates  were  really  his.  The  reader  of  the 
Little  Flowers ,  the  Mirror  of  Perfection  or  the  Legend  of 
the  Three  Companions  may  feel  the  same  sort  of  doubt  with 
regard  to  Francis  of  Assisi.  But  can  we  doubt  that  in 


1  Contrast  the  command  Ama  nesciri. 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 


99 


both  these  cases  the  character  itself — the  '  nucleus  ’ 
around  which  the  inventions  gather  and  which  alone 
gives  them  significance — is  drawn  from  memory  ?  Can  we 
doubt  that  the  impression  which  these  books  convey  of 
contact  with  an  actual  personality  is  a  correct  one  ? 
And  does  not  the  character  of  Jesus  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
bear  the  same  stamp  of  truth  ? 

But  we  are  not  left  with  vague  impressions.  The 
impression  is  confirmed  by  argument.  ‘  Every  saying  ’, 
says  Dr.  Schweitzer — and  we  might  as  truly  say  ‘  Every 
incident  ’ — ‘  contains  in  its  own  way  the  whole  Jesus.* 
To  what  men  or  group  of  men  can  the  original  invention 
of  those  sayings  and  scenes  be  ascribed  ?  When  the 
disciples  of  Jesus  began  to  idealize  Him,  we  know  what 
direction  their  imagination  took.  When  an  Evangelist 
corrects  his  ‘  source  \  the  correction  is  made  too  often 
under  the  influence  of  that  abstract  conception  of  divinity 
in  which  the  divine  is  merely  the  opposite  of  the  human. 1 
The  true  majesty  of  Jesus  is  rather  impaired  by  the  cor¬ 
rection  than  enhanced  by  it,  just  as  the  charm  of  Francis 
begins  to  vanish  when  his  biographers  assimilate  him 
to  the  conventional  saint.  In  the  case  of  Socrates,  the 
idealization  was  carried  out  with  greater  genius.  But 
with  the  Central  Figure  of  the  Gospels,  as  with  St.  Francis, 
there  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  conclusion  that  it  is  just 
the  blemishes  in  the  picture  which  are  its  least  historical 
features. 

What  bearing  have  these  questions  on  the  religious 

1  Cf.  St.  Mark  iii.  5  with  St.  Matt.  xii.  9-13,  and  St.  Luke  vi. 
10.  The  first  and  third  Gospels  here  omit  both  our  Lord's 
‘  anger  ’  and  His  *  grief  ’.  Cf.  also  St.  Mark  vi.  5,  6,  with  St, 
Matt,  xiii.  58, 


100  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


estimate  of  Jesus  ?  The  connexion  between  history  and 
religion  is  here  a  close  one.  ‘  Of  all  the  great  figures  \ 
says  Mr.  Conybeare,1  ‘  which  look  down  upon  us  across 
the  gulf  and  void  of  time,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  the  most 
gracious  and  winning  of  aspect  :  and  although  his  memory 
was  soon  associated  with  that  policy  of  craft  and  exclu¬ 
siveness,  of  cruelty  and  credulity,  which  in  East  and  West 
styled  itself  orthodoxy,  nevertheless  his  name  has  ever 
been  for  the  poor  and  oppressed,  for  the  despised  and 
disinherited  of  the  earth,  a  bond  and  symbol  of  union  in 
peace  and  charity  \  If  such  is  the  estimate  formed  by 
one  who  views  these  questions  in  an  attitude  of  detach¬ 
ment — and  can  any  one  deny  that  graciousness  of  aspect 
of  which  Mr.  Conybeare  speaks  ? — is  it  surprising  if 
those  who  have  made  it  the  business  of  their  lives  not 
only  to  study  the  influence  of  Jesus,  but  actively  to 
submit  to  it,  see  in  Him  even  more  than  is  perceived  by 
the  pure  historian  however  open-minded  ?  There  are 
many  of  the  great  names  in  ancient  history  which  even 
to  this  day  are  a  living  inspiration  for  conduct.  But 
what  if  by  contact  with  Jesus  we  discover  in  Him  an 
inspiration  which  we  feel  to  have  an  absolute  claim 
in  all  respects  to  our  obedience  ?  There  have  been 
leaders  who  have  led  men  to  face  with  confidence  what 
looked  like  overwhelming  odds.  But  what  if  wTe  find  that 
we  have  learned  from  Jesus  to  face  with  confidence  both 
death  and  the  Hereafter,  convinced  that  the  whole 
Universe  can  contain  nothing  to  abash  those  who  have 
entrusted  the  guidance  of  their  lives  to  His  command  ? 
There  are  those  of  whom  it  has  been  said — metaphorically 
no  doubt  but  none  the  less  truly — that  they  look  reproach- 


1  Myth  Magic  and  Morals,  p.  xi. 


THE  HISTORICAL  JESUS 


ioi 


fully  at  us  from  out  of  the  past.  But  what  if,  when  we 
examine  our  lives  as  in  His  presence — with  the  eyes  of 
the  ‘  recovered  Portrait  '  upon  us, — we  find  such  language 
so  supremely  applicable  to  Jesus  that  the  sense  that  it  is 
metaphorical  is  lost  ? 

His  kind  but  searching  glance  can  scan 

The  very  faults  which  shame  would  hide. 

It  is  easy  to  suggest  that  the  writer  of  such  words  was 
under  the  influence  of  theological  presuppositions,  and 
for  the  rest  was  drawing  on  his  imagination.  Yet  may  he 
not,  after  all,  have  been  describing  a  genuine  experience, 
such  as  those  who  do  not  share  his  theological  outlook 
may  themselves  in  turn  repeat  ? 

We  may  go  yet  further.  We  may  ask  whether  even 
the  dogma  of  the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  itself  is  unsupported 
by  historical  evidence.  It  shows  little  penetration  to 
argue  that  on  this  subject  our  evidence  can  be  merely 
negative — that  we  can  at  best  say  no  more  than  that  no 
sin  is  recorded  of  Him.  We  do  not  know  the  whole  life- 
history  of  Socrates.  Yet  we  know  enough  of  him  to  be 
sure  that  he  was  not  the  man  to  become  wilfully  and 
contentedly  the  victim  of  a  sophistical  illusion.  We  do 
not  know  all  that  was  said  and  done  by  Francis  of  Assisi. 
Yet  we  know  enough  of  him  to  be  sure  that  he  was  not 
actuated  in  his  choice  of  a  career  by  sordid  or  selfish 
motives.  Francis  might  very  well  be  described  as  a 
'  semi-mythical  Italian  Yet  there  is  ample  ground 
nevertheless  for  the  high  estimation  in  which  our 
generation  has  learned  to  hold  him.  We  have  similar 
grounds  for  confidence  in  regard  to  the  character  of  Jesus, 
even  though  we  may  distrust  in  some  parts  the  narratives 


102  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


of  His  life.  No  one  could  well  seem  more  conscious  than 
He  of  the  facts  of  human  sin.  No  one  has  done  so  much 
to  bring  that  consciousness  home  to  the  minds  of  others. 
Yet  while  all  those  who  have  learned  of  Him  appear  to  be 
above  all  things  penitents,  Jesus  appears  as  something 
essentially  different  from  a  penitent.  It  has  been  well 
said  that — taking  Him  as  the  Synoptists  describe  Him — ■ 
we  see  in  Him  none  of  the  scars  of  conflict,  none  of  those 
marks  of  past  warfare  with  evil  habits  which  are  conspic¬ 
uous  on  the  souls  of  all  who  have  waged  the  battle  with 
alternating  success  and  failure.  Could  He  have  spoken 
with  that  serene  self-confidence  which  we  observe  in  Him — 
could  He  so  unquestioningly  have  exalted  Himself  above 
His  followers  as  their  Master — if  He  had  been  haunted 
by  the  fear  that  as  He  had  erred  in  one  direction  in  the 
past,  so  He  might  err  in  other  directions  in  the  future  ? 
Could  He,  being  the  frank,  candid,  right-minded  teacher 
which  we  find  Him  to  be,  have  claimed  for  Himself  the 
position  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  which  there  seems  to  be 
evidence  that  He  did  claim,  if  He  had  been  conscious  that 
He  had  not  been  always  strictly  loyal  to  the  commands  of 
the  Father  ? 

It  is  in  a  spirit  of  candour  like  His  own  that  all  such 
questions  should  be  met.  If  we  have  once  really  perceived 
wherein  the  distinctiveness  of  the  Christian  method  of 
salvation  lies  we  may  approach  these  further  problems 
without  haste  and  without  fear  :  for  those  who  practise 
His  method  have  already  become  His  disciples. 


CHAPTER  XI 


EVANGELICALISM 


ET  us  now  pause  to  notice  the  results  at  which  we 


T—-/  have  arrived.  Relying  solely  on  arguments  which 
are  independent  of  supernatural  assumptions,  we  have 
discovered  the  unique  power  of  the  Christian  religion  to 
deliver  mankind  from  guilt  :  and  we  have  seen  how  the 
claims  of  Christianity  are  associated  with  the  personal 
claims  of  Jesus  Christ. 

It  will  also  have  become  evident  that  these  truths  can 
never  be  grasped  in  their  full  significance  till  they  become 
something  more  than  mere  ethical  and  historical  judg¬ 
ments.  Conviction,  if  it  is  to  become  religious,  must 
become  in  a  peculiar  sense  personal.  Intelligent  assent 
to  the  Kantian  ethics,  for  example,  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  effective  conviction  of  sin.  To  ‘  take  the  sinner’s 
place  with  humility  and  contrition,  is  an  act  of  the  will 
as  well  as  of  the  intellect. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  pursue  our  present  method  as  a 
serious  search  for  religious  truth,  we  must  turn  to  the 
schools  of  personal  piety  and  seek  to  learn  and  apply  their 
lessons. 

There  is,  in  especial,  much  to  be  learned  from  Evan¬ 
gelicalism.  Evangelical  teaching  has  been  greatly  mis- 

103 


104  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

understood.  It  is  condemned  as  a  form  of  ignorant 
emotionalism  and  Bibliolatry.  It  is  even  suspected  of  a 
tendency  towards  antinomianism. 

That  these  suspicions  are  unjust  may  be  readily  seen 
by  any  one  who  will  acquaint  himself  with  Evangelical 
practices  and  literature  :  and  it  is  in  the  popular  literature 
of  Evangelicalism  that  the  clearest  documentary  evidence 
on  this  subject  is  to  be  found. 

So  far  as  reliance  on  emotion  is  concerned,  modern 
Evangelicalism  is  in  perpetual  protest  against  it.  We 
are  saved — it  teaches — not  by  feeling  but  by  ‘  believing  ’ 
— by  ‘  taking  God  at  His  word/1 

But,  as  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Evan¬ 
gelicalism  relies  on  emotions,  so  it  would  be  an  equal  mis¬ 
take  to  conclude  from  these  expressions  that  it  places 
salvation  in  orthodox  belief,  or  in  a  blind  reliance  on  the 
letter  of  Scripture.  ‘  Believing  that  Jesus  died  '  says 

1  See,  for  example,  Sacred  Songs  and  Solos,  no.  514. 

‘  Cease  of  fitness  to  be  thinking  ; 

Do  not  longer  try  to  feel : 

It  is  trusting,  and  not  feeling, 

That  will  give  the  Spirit’s  seal.’ 

The  italics  are  in  the  original.  Sankey’s  Sacred  Songs  has  be¬ 
come  the  standard  hymn-book  of  Evangelicalism.  Cf.  no.  278 
in  the  same  collection  : 

*  Weeping  will  not  save  me, 

Though  my  face  were  bathed  in  tears.’ 

The  test  of  ‘  feeling  ’  is  essentially  a  quantitative  test :  and,  as 
every  one  acquainted  with  the  language  of  Evangelical  discourses 
must  know,  the  reliance  upon  quantity  of  emotion,  even  upon 
quantity  of  faith,  is  sternly  discouraged  by  this  school.  Such 
phrases  may  be  heard  as  that  ‘  it  is  not  the  quantity  of  our  faith 
which  saves  us,  but  its  object.’  Cf.  no.  193  which  speaks  of 
‘  trusting  when  our  faith  is  small  *  Build  up  yourselves  on 
your  most  holy  faith — not  on  your  most  happy  feeling  ’  (Figgis. 
Christ  and  Full  Salvation,  p.  206).  See  p.  136  below. 


EVANGELICALISM 


105 


a  well-known  tract  1  ‘  will  save  nobody  :  it  is  simply  a 
matter  of  history/  *  The  reason  why  Christianity  has  not 
made  more  rapid  advance  ’  says  another  tract  2  '  is 
because  the  people  are  asked  to  believe  too  many  things. 
One  half  the  things  a  man  is  expected  to  believe  in  order 
to  reach  heaven  have  no  more  to  do  with  his  salvation 
than  the  question  how  many  volcanoes  there  are  in  the 
moon,  or  how  far  apart  from  each  other  are  the  rings  of 
Saturn.  I  believe  ten  thousand  things  ;  but  none  of 
them  have  anything  to  do  with  my  salvation  except  these 
two — that  I  am  a  sinner  and  that  Christ  came  to  save 
me/ 

Still  more  outspoken  is  the  following  passage  from  a 
published  address  by  Dr.  Torrey.  ‘  I  said  to  him  “  John  : 
you  ought  to  accept  Christ.”  He  said  “  Well :  I  don’t 
believe  as  you  do.  I  don’t  believe  in  God  or  in  your 
Bible.”  “  But”  I  said  “  John,  that  does  not  make  any 
difference.  If  you  will  take  Jesus  Christ  as  your  Saviour, 
He  will  save  you”.  ’ 

The  fact  is  that — though  the  word  ‘  moral  ’  is  avoided 
because  of  its  association  with  the  doctrine  of  justification 
by  works — the  ‘  one  thing  needful  ’  which  Evangelicalism 
demands,  whether  this  is  spoken  of  as  f  repentance’ 
‘  obedience  ’  ‘  faith  ’  ‘  trust  ’  or  ‘  surrender  of  the  will  to 
God’,  is  always  conceived  as  in  the  fullest  sense  a  moral 
act.  Where  morality  is  dissociated — as  it  is  by  Kant — 
from  the  *  doctrine  of  works  ’  altogether,  and  where  it  is 

1  '  The  difference  between  history  and  faith /  See  The  Tra¬ 
veller's  Guide  (London,  S.  Partridge  &  Co.,  230th  thousand,  p. 
32). 

2  ‘  Two  things  necessary  for  salvation .’  p.  40  of  the  same 

collection. 


io6  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


made  to  consist  in  the  rightness  of  the  Will,  a  view  of 
morality  results  which  not  only  would  be  accepted  by 
Evangelicals  at  once,  if  they  understood  the  terms 
in  which  it  is  propounded,  but  which  actually  expresses 
the  very  essence  of  their  own  view.1 

A  sufficient  proof  of  what  is  here  asserted  may  be 
found  in  the  use  of  the  term  ‘  backsliding  ' — which  in 
Evangelical  usage  implies  always  a  moral  lapse  and  not  a 
doctrinal  one  2 — and  in  the  doctrine  of  '  Conversion  \ 

1  The  hymn  quoted  above — no.  514  in  Sankey’s  Sacred  Songs 
— speaks  of  '  choice  ’,  *  decision  ’  and  ‘  yielding  *  as  well  as  of 
*  trusting’.  ‘  Let  your  will  to  God  be  given’.  Cf.  The  Keswick 
Convention,  edited  by  C.  F.  Harford  (Keswick  House,  E.C.)  p.  34. 
‘Can  it  indeed  be  true  that  Thou  hast  not  only  promised,  but 

commanded  this  ?  For  Thy  command  seems  to  me  to  involve, 
if  possible,  even  a  stronger  assurance  than  Thy  promise.’  This 
thought  is  assuredly  not  borrowed  from  Kant  directly  or 
indirectly.  But  this  fact  only  makes  the  agreement  the  more 
impressive. 

2  See  Traveller's  Guide,  p.  12.  ‘  He  who  accepts  Christ  has 

to  obey  Christ.  He  who  says  “  I  believe  ”  and  yet  lives  in  sin 
is  a  liar.’  On  the  very  same  page  occur  the  words  ‘  Men  are 
punished  by  God,  not  because  they  have  led  a  wicked  life,  but 
for  one  sin,  unbelief  in  Christ’  (John  iii.  18).  Then  follow  (in 
entire  accordance  with  St.  John  iii.  19.  ‘  This  is  the  judgment  ’ 

etc.)  the  words  quoted  above.  Thus  if  from  such  statements 
as  that  ‘  we  are  punished  for  unbelief  only  ’  (cf.  Traveller's  Guide 
p.  40  ‘You  must  beware  of  resting  your  peace  on  your  feelings, 
convictions,  tears,  repentance,  prayers,  duties  or  resolutions. 
You  must  begin  with  receiving  Christ,  and  not  make  that  the 
termination  of  a  course  of  fancied  preparation  ’)  the  conclusion 
were  drawn  that  Evangelicalism  teaches  the  antinomian  doctrine 
of  justification  by  orthodox  belief,  this  conclusion  would  be  due 
to  taking  these  sentences  out  of  their  context.  This,  however, 
is  just  what  the  critics  of  Evangelicalism  have  habitually  done. 

Cf.  Rom.  vi.  2,  15  ;  iii.  8.  It  is  only  when  we  have  perceived 
why  it  is  that  the  Pauline  teaching  slides  so  naturally  into  anti- 
nomianism  that  we  are  in  a  position  to  understand  the  former. 


EVANGELICALISM 


107 

In  defending  f  sudden  conversions  ’  the  late  Mr.  Moody 
pertinently  argued  that  to  ask  a  man  to  renounce  his 
sins  partially  and  not  entirely,  for  fear  that  a  total  renuncia¬ 
tion  should  make  too  sudden  a  change  in  his  habits, 
was  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 1  In  truth,  an  act 
of  will  must  in  the  nature  of  things  be  '  sudden  A 
decision  good  or  bad  may  have  been  prepared  for  by  the 
experiences  of  a  lifetime  ;  but  to  take  the  decision  is, 
when  we  come  to  the  point,  the  work  of  a  moment. 
But,  even  if  Mr.  Moody’s  argument  were  unsound,  it 
suffices  to  explain  the  teaching  of  his  school.2 


1  Another  preacher  asked,  in  the  same  connexion,  whether 
we  were  to  require  the  professional  thief  gradually  to  reduce 
the  number  of  his  daily  thefts,  lest  the  total  change  of  habits 
should  be  too  much  for  him. 

2  Cf.  the  following  passage  from  Mr.  Moody’s  pamphlet  The 
way  to  God ,  p.  39.  ‘  Notice  how  the  Scripture  puts  it — “  Except 
a  man  be  born  again  ”  “  born  from  above  ”  “  born  of  the  Spirit  ” . 
From  amongst  a  number  of  other  passages  where  we  find  this 
word  "  Except  ”,  I  would  just  name  three.  Except  ye  repent, 
3*e  shall  all  likewise  perish.  Except  ye  be  converted  and  become 
as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Except  your  righteousness  shall  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  ye  shall  in  no  case  enter  into  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  They  all  really  mean  the  same  thing.' 

This  assertion  that  the  f  new  birth  '  conversion  ’  and  ‘  repent¬ 
ance  ’  are  the  ‘  same  thing  ’  may  be  compared  with  Bunyan’s 
declaration  that  f  beheving  and  coming  are  all  one  ’  ( Pilgrim’s 
Progress,  Part  I,  near  the  end).  Bunyan, — whose  influence  on 
English  Evangelicalism  has  been  powerful  and  continuous — 
teaches  that  he  that  ‘  comes,  that  is,  runs  out  in  his  heart  and 
affections  after  salvation  by  Christ,  he  indeed  believes  in  Christ.’ 

This  passage  is  especially  worthy  of  being  reflected  on  by 
those  to  whom  the  identification  of  Evangelical  ‘  faith  ’  with 
the  Kantian  ‘  good  will  ’  is  a  hard  saying.  It  may  be  taken  in 
connexion  with  Dr.  Torrey’s  remark  that  a  lack  of  belief  in  God 
*  does  not  make  any  difference  ’.  What  else  can  this  whole- 


10S  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Now — since  we  are  concerned  here  with  the  case  of 
those  who  believe  in  Duty  but  not  in  God — it  is  necessary 
for  our  present  purpose  to  distinguish  carefully  between 
Evangelical  doctrine  and  Evangelical  method.  Evan¬ 
gelicalism  rests  explicitly  upon  the  witness  of  spiritual 
experience.  What,  then, — when  we  eliminate  those 
doctrinal  presuppositions  which  colour  its  language — 
does  the  experience  of  Evangelicalism  teach  ? 

This  question  can  be  answered  intelligently  by  each 
individual,  so  far,  and  so  far  only,  as  his  own  experience 
carries  him.  Yet  there  is  an  impressive  uniformity  in 
the  phrases  which  are  found  by  different  men  to  be 
the  natural  expression  of  their  own  spiritual  history, 
in  the  sense  they  attach  to  these  phrases,  and  in  the 
conclusions  they  draw  from  them.  Again  and  again, 
for  example,  in  one  generation  after  another,  men  recur 
to  the  Scriptural  phrase  which  speaks  of  the  ‘  peace  which 
passes  all  understanding/ 


Thus  we  find,  first,  that  those  who  practise  the  Christian 
method  of  whole-hearted  surrender  of  the  will  to  God’s 
Law,  experience  a  peace,  a  rest,  a  satisfaction  of  soul,  which 


hearted  desire  for  salvation  through  Christ,  which  Bunyan 
describes,  be  supposed  to  be,  except  a  genuine  willingness  to 
follow  His  commandments  ?  When  we  have  once  perceived  that 
Evangelicalism  lays  the  chief  stress  neither  on  orthodox  belief 
nor  on  the  strength  of  the  emotions,  on  what  can  it  be  supposed 
to  be  laying  stress  except  on  the  rightness  of  the  will  ?  And  what 
can  be  the  meaning  of  the  language  about  '  total  self-surrender  ' 
etc.,  except  to  teach  such  an  act  of  universal  submission  to  the 
Law  as  Kant  demands  ?  Compare  the  common  distinction 
between  remorse  (which  is  sorrow  for  a  particular  sin)  and  repent¬ 
ance  (which  is  renunciation  of  sin  in  general). 


EVANGELICALISM 


109 


is  different  in  kind  from  all  other  happiness.  In  mere 
quantity  of  pleasurable  emotion  other  kinds  of  happiness 
may  surpass  it.  ‘  The  satisfaction  of  being  well-dressed  1 
said  a  worldly-minded  woman  ‘  is  greater  than  any  joy 
which  the  consolations  of  religion  can  bestow/  That 
worldly  satisfactions  may  be  quantitatively  greater  than 
spiritual  peace  of  mind  is  the  experience  of  many  who  are 
in  a  position  to  compare  them.  Lienee  arises  the  power 
of  temptation.  But  spiritual  peace  is  felt  to  be  in  a  special 
sense  ‘  from  above  It  cannot  be  reckoned  with  other 
pleasures,  or  judged  by  the  same  hedonistic  standard. 
It  is  a  satisfaction  which  goes  down  to  the  depths  of  our 
being.  Its  essence  is  that — in  Kantian  language — it  is 
'  rational  \ 

That  the  individual  may  in  this  matter  be  under 
an  illusion  must  be  admitted.  There  are  cases  in  which 
we  may  suspect  that  the  real  causes  of  a  happiness 
which  professes  to  be  spiritual  are  chiefly  mundane  : 
that  it  results  from  an  equable  temperament,  a  good 
digestion,  an  assured  income.  But  experience  will  show 
that,  by  genuine  self-surrender,  a  peace  of  mind  may  be 
attained  which  survives  all  changes  both  of  mood  and  of 
circumstances. 

Secondly,  this  special  peace  of  mind  is  found  to  be 
associated  with  Christ,  and  this  not  only  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  start  with  an  a  priori  belief  in  His  divinity. 
In  the  case  of  many  men  there  can  be  no  question — -as  all 
mission-preachers  know  well — that  the  doctrine  is  based 
upon  the  experience,  and  not  the  experience  upon  the 
doctrine.  We  find  Jesus  to  be  God,  because  we  have  first 
known  His  peace  to  be  the  f  peace  of  God  which  passes  all 
understanding'.  With  others  the  experience  is  clear  and 


no  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


indubitable  without  ever  leading  them  to  the  doctrine 
at  all.  No  one,  for  example,  has  ever  known  better  than 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  did, —hostile  though  he  was  to 
dogmatic  theology — that  it  is  ‘  no  grand  performance  or 
discovery  of  a  man’s  own  ’  that  can  ‘  bring  him  to  joy 
and  peace,  but  an  attachment — the  influence  of  One 
full  of  grace  and  truth  ;  an  influence  which  we  feel  we 
know  not  how,  and  which  subdues  us  we  know  not  when, 
which,  like  the  wind,  breathes  where  it  lists  k1 

Thirdly,  the  peace  of  Christ  is  so  unlike  all  other  known 
pleasures,  both  in  its  character  and  its  conditions, 
that  to  the  simple  mind  it  appears  miraculous  and  super¬ 
natural  :  something  which  reason  cannot  define  nor 
philosophy  explain.2  Indeed  this  fact  has  given  rise  at 
times  to  misleading  phraseology,  which  in  its  turn  has 
been  made  the  excuse  for  really  erroneous  teaching. 
The  work  of  God  in  the  soul  has  been  distinguished  so 
sharply  from  the  efforts  of  the  sinner  himself, — and  it 
has  been  represented  as  so  much  beyond  his  comprehen¬ 
sion — as  to  suggest  a  quiescence  both  of  the  understand¬ 
ing  and  of  the  will,  like  that  which  characterizes  the  worst 
forms  of  quiet istic  Mysticism.3  Just  as  for  Kant  the 

1  Literature  and  Dogma,  chap.  viii.  i. 

2  Cf.  Moody’s  The  Way  to  God,  pp.  51-52.  Such  language 
as  this  of  Mr.  Moody’s  is  often  quoted  to  prove  that  Evangel¬ 
icalism  regards  God’s  dealings  as  absolutely  arbitrary — as  having 
in  them  nothing  either  rational  or  moral.  The  language  must  be 
judged  by  its  context. 

3  One  danger  which  follows  from  such  language  is  well  indicated 
by  a  modern  writer  who  describes  in  a  brilliant  passage  the 
deathbed  of  the  great  Pitt. 

“  He  was  attended  ”  he  says  “  by  a  worldly-minded  prelate 
who  talked  to  him  in  the  conventional  style  about '  the  Saviour  ’ 
and  his  own  unblemished  life,  with  the  result  that,  were  not  the 


EVANGELICALISM 


hi 


Moral  Law  is  mysterious  (in  that  it  proceeds  from  the 
hidden  ‘  noumenal  ’  self),  and  simple  (in  that  abstraction 
is  made  of  all  special  motives),  so  Evangelical  preachers 
describe  the  method  of  salvation  as  at  once  simple  and 
inexplicable.  They  bid  us  to  turn  away  from  the  various 
means,  and  the  various  efforts,  by  which  the  natural 
man  seeks  for  righteousness,  and  to  adopt  an  attitude 
which  appears  to  be  purely  passive  1  and  negative. 

The  criticisms  to  which  both  the  Kantian  and  the 
Evangelical  teaching  lie  open  are  obvious.  A  law,  it 
may  be  truly  said,  which  has  no  definite  ‘  content  ’  is  no 
law  at  all.  The  Evangelical  teaching  if  followed  quite 
literally  would  lead  to  absolute  indolence. 

Yet  such  language — though  peculiarly  liable  to  be 
misunderstood — expresses  a  genuine  fact  of  observation. 
When  the  man  who  has  been  oppressed  by  ‘  thronging 
duties  ’  finds  sudden  victory  and  peace  in  the  mere  ab¬ 
stract  willingness  to  do  whatsoever  God  may  command 
the  change  produces  sometimes  an  almost  bewildering 


scene  so  tragic,  it  would  provoke  a  smile.  After  listening  to 
these  topics,  Mr.  Pitt  is  said  to  have  raised  himself  and  said  : 
'  I  must  confess  that  I  have  completely  neglected  religion  during 
my  life,  being  so  much  taken  up  with  politics.  But,’  he  added, 
lifting  up  his  arms,  ‘  I  throw  myself  entirely  on  the  merits  of  my 
Saviour.’  The  Bishop  reports  this  with  infinite  satisfaction, 
as  shewing  clearly  that  his  friend  was  now  f  all  right’.  Repent¬ 
ance,  it  will  be  seen,  or  satisfaction,  or  self-humiliation,  was  not 
thought  of.  Poor  Mr.  Pitt  had  simply  consented  to  transfer 
his  case  entirely  to  other  guardianship.  He  had  made  this  hand¬ 
some  acknowledgment  without  reserve,  and  was  at  rest.”  See 
Death  Jewels  by  Percy  Fitzgerald  (Burns  and  Oates).  We  can 
only  remark — -Corruptio  optimi  pessima. 

1  Such  expressions  are  used  as  ‘  Just  trust  in  God,’  *  Just  be¬ 
lieve  His  promise,’  ‘  Just  leave  yourself  in  His  hands.’  To  the 
question  ‘  What  have  I  to  do  ?  ’  the  answer  is  given  ‘  You  have 


ii2  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


impression  of  vacancy.1  This  state  of  mind  is  peculiarly 
difficult  to  describe  for  the  enlightenment  of  others.  Yet 
it  may  well  "be  said  that  those  who  have  never  known 
the  experience  in  which  the  mere  ‘  form  ’  of  the  Law  or 
the  Divine  Will  isolates  itself  from  all  particular  aims  and 
motives,  have  missed  one  of  the  most  precious  experiences 
of  our  religion.  This  experience,  however,  is  obviously 
not  dependent  upon  any  particular  form  of  theological 
belief. 

If  then  the  reader  will  really  take  the  trouble  to  ex¬ 
amine  for  himself  those  facts  of  Christian  experience 
which  are  dealt  with  under  the  above  three  headings 
(especially  the  former  two,  and  here  one  possibility  of 
experiment  at  least  lies  open  to  him)  he  will  find  enough 
uniformity  to  justify  him  in  speaking — in  a  quite  scien¬ 
tific  sense — of  the  '  law  ’  or  ‘  laws  '  which  Evangelical 
experience  makes  known  to  us.  It  is  a  uniform  f  law ' 
that  the  whole-hearted  surrender  of  the  will  to  the  obe¬ 
dience  of  Christ  is  followed  by  the  unique  sense  of  peace 
which  has  been  described. 


A  further  question,  however,  still  remains.  If  we 

nothing  to  do.’  Again  the  method  by  which  peace  is  found  has 
been  compared  to  the  method  by  which  one  may  learn  to  float 
upon  water.  ‘  You  will  not  float 5  it  is  said  ‘  till  you  cease  to 
struggle,  till  you  cease  to  make  efforts  to  save  yourself,  till  you 
remain  quite  passive  and  are  willing  to  trust  to  the  mere  buoyancy 
of  the  sea.’  The  spiritual  value  of  such  language  is  not  disproved 
by  the  mere  fact  (see  first  note  to  chap,  xii.)  that  it  can  be  mis¬ 
understood  and  perverted. 

1  Cf.  the  peculiar  sense  of  *  lightness  ’  which  Newman  pictures 
as  belonging  to  the  redeemed  soul  newly  delivered  from  the  body. 
Dream  of  Gerontius ,  II. 


EVANGELICALISM 


ii3 

recognize  that  these  laws  exist,  what  character  are  we  to 
assign  to  them  ? 

A  comparison  has  been  drawn  between  ‘  the  phenomena 
of  religious  emotion  even  in  its  highest  form  ’  and  those 
‘  of  hypnotism,  of  neurosis,  and  of  the  effects  of  nitrous 
oxide  \  It  has  been  argued  that  *  the  development  of 
all  these  is  governed  by  the  same  psychological  laws  \ 1 
From  this  position  it  is  no  great  step  to  the  suggestion 
that  the  ‘  laws  ’  of  the  spiritual  life  are  merely  the  uni¬ 
formities  which  belong  to  a  particular  type  of  the  neurotic 
temperament. 

Now  even  to  those  who  know  the  Christian  religion 
from  without  only,  the  theory  which  regards  the  sense 
of  sin  and  reconciliation  as  a  neurotic  illusion  can  hardly 
seem  to  possess  much  probability.  The  moral  results 
of  these  convictions  are  familiar  :  and  they  are  seldom 
such  as  to  suggest  either  delusion  or  weakness  of  mind. 
But  the  test  to  which  alone  we  can  appeal  with  absolute 
confidence  is  the  test  of  personal  practice.  As  the  man 
of  reasonably  good  life  knows,  if  he  will  reflect  upon  it, 
that  there  are  moral  laws  before  which  he  not  merely 
feels  guilty,  but  is  so  :  so  the  normally  constituted  man 
who  whole-heartedly  seeks  to  take  Christ’s  yoke  upon  him 
will  attain  not  merely  an  emotional  sense  of  relief  from 
guilt,  but  the  conviction  that  this  sense  of  innocence 
justly  belongs  to  him. 

In  other  words,  he  will  learn  that  in  Christian  experi¬ 
ence  we  have  to  do,  not  merely  with  valid  pathological 
generalizations,  but  with  laws  which,  in  quite  another 
manner,  are  valid  for  every  rational  being  as  such. 

1  Lord  Haldane  remarks  that  Prof.  James  has  ‘  shown  ’  that 
this  is  so.  Would  not  ‘  brilliantly  maintained  ’  be  a  juster 
expression  ?  See  Pathway  to  Reality  (first  series),  pp.  5,  6. 


CHAPTER  XII 


THE  KESWICK  SCHOOL 

IF  this  is  true  of  the  experiences  already  mentioned 
it  is  true  equally  of  those  special  experiences  which 
are  associated  with  the  School  of  Thought  which  takes  its 
name  from  the  Keswick  Convention. 

We  are  concerned  with  Evangelicalism  here  in  one 
special  aspect  only.  The  Keswick  School  deserves,  in 
fact,  a  far  fuller  treatment  than  belongs  to  the  present 
argument.  In  the  time  of  Jerome  the  Church  was  not 
ashamed  to  seek  instruction  in  the  wilds  of  little  Bethle¬ 
hem.  The  learned  theology  of  to-day  (though  the  par¬ 
allel  is  not  complete)  might  gather  far  more  good  than  it  is 
prepared  to  expect  at  the  shores  of  the  Cumbrian  lake.1 

1  Keswick  has  never  been  slow  to  acknowledge  its  debt  to 
external  sources.  Yet  Mr.  Figgis  is  clearly  right  when  he  states 
that  the  Keswick  teaching  ‘  is  not  Quietism  with  which  it  is 
sometimes  compared.  This  may  be  seen  by  comparing  any  of 
the  Keswick  books — especially  Mr.  Figgis’  own  Christ  and  Full 
Salvation — with  the  sixty-eight  propositions  (attributed  to 
Michael  de  Molinos  and  condemned  by  Innocent  XI  in  1687) 
which  may  be  regarded  as  the  official  definition  of  this  heresy. 
Consider  for  example  the  following  *  condemned  ’  theses  : — 

1.  Oportet  hominem  suas  potentias  annihilare,  et  haec  est 
vita  interna. 

2.  Velle  operari  active,  est  deum  offendere,  qui  vult  esse  ipse 
solus  agens. 

4.  ...  Deus  operari  vult  in  nobis  sine  nobis. 

7.  Non  debet  anima  cogitare  nec  de  praemio,  nec  de  punitione, 

114 


THE  KESWICK  SCHOOL 


115 

The  Keswick  Convention  addresses  itself  to  those  who 
are  already  ‘  the  children  of  God  through  faith  in  Christ 
Jesus/  and  bids  them  press  on  to  ‘  full  growth  V  to  ‘ful¬ 
ness  of  blessing,’ — bids  them  seek  uninterrupted  commu¬ 
nion  with  God  and  ‘  victory  over  all  known  sin/2 

The  central  tenet  of  the  school  is  that,  as  Justification 
is  by  Faith,  so  Sanctification  is  by  Faith  also.  Its  aim 
is  to  prove  that  ‘  holiness  of  life  is  possible  in  a  stricter 
sense  of  the  words  than  is  commonly  admitted  in  the 
Christian  Churches  ’,  that  a  ‘  life  of  faith  and  victory, 
of  peace  and  rest  ’  is  the  ‘  rightful  heritage  of  the  child 
of  God,  into  which  he  may  step  not  by  the  laborious  ascent 
of  some  Scala  Sancta ,  not  by  long  prayers  and  laborious 
effort/  but  by  a  ‘  deliberate  and  decisive  act  of  faith  ’  :3 
that  though  sinless  perfection  is  beyond  our  reach  in  this 
world,  still  ‘  the  normal  experience  of  the  child  of  God 
should  be  one  of  victory  instead  of  constant  defeat,  one 
of  liberty  instead  of  grinding  bondage,  one  of  perfect 
peace  instead  of  restless  anxiety/4 

If  this  is  the  result  aimed  at,  what  is  to  be  the  method  ? 

nec  de  paradiso,  nec  de  inferno,  nec  de  morte,  nec  de 
aeternitate. 

10.  Si  propriis  defectibus  alios  scandalizet,  non  est  necessar- 
ium  reflectere,  dummodo  non  adsit  voluntas  scandaliz- 
andi.  .  .  . 

15.  Sicut  non  debent  a  Deo  aliquam  rem  petere,  ita  nec  illi 
ob  aliquam  gratias  agere  debent ;  quia  utrumque  est 
actus  propriae  voluntatis. 

44.  Job  blasphemavit,  et  tamen  non  peccavit  labiis  suis  : 
quia  fuit  ex  daemonis  violentia.  Cf.  49,  42. 

1  The  Keswick  Convention.  Its  Message,  Its  Method  and 
its  Men,  p.  5.  See  also  an  annual  publication.  The  Keswick 
Week  (Marshall  Brothers). 

2  Keswick  Convention,  p.  26. 

3  P.  6. 


4  P.  6. 


Ii6  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


The  answer  is,  in  a  word,  'complete  surrender  of  will/1 
This  is  the  method,  and  the  sole  method.  The  very 
same  act  of  will  which  brings  the  sinner  to  forgiveness 
brings  him  also — if  all  its  implications  are  fully  thought 
out — to  victory  :  and  it  is  just  the  thinking  out  of  these 
implications  with  which  the  Keswick  teachers  are  chiefly 
concerned.  This  '  one  decisive  act  ’  of  self-surrender  needs 
to  be  applied  day  by  day  to  all  questions  of  conduct  as 
they  arise. 

In  describing  this  decisive  act,  the  greatest  care  has 
been  taken  by  the  Keswick  speakers  and  writers  to  avoid 
every  appearance  of  fanaticism.  They  use  no  language 
which  represents  the  ‘  decisive  step  ’  as  a  great  psycho¬ 
logical  upheaval — least  of  all  as  a  miraculous  deliverance 
from  future  temptations. 2  In  what  then  does  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  character  of  this  teaching  consist  ? 

The  characteristic  doctrine  of  modern  Evangelicalism 
that  salvation  depends  upon  one  great  decision,  that  we 
need  but  f  one  step  * — ‘  out  of  self,  into  Christ  * — is  here 
applied  to  the  details  of  conduct.  Men  are  called  to 
trust,  not  in  habits  or  methods  or  rules,  but  in  God — 
to  meet  each  moment’s  temptation  in  direct  reliance  on 
the  present  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  work  of  the 
Keswick  School  arose  ‘  as  the  immediate  consequence 
of  a  true  definition  of  sin’.3  Thus  the  essence  of  the 
matter  is  that  every  separate  decision  should  be  brought 
directly  under  the  highest  moral  category — that  every 
deliberate  act  be  thought  of  as  God’s  command.  In  such 
a  view  of  life  there  is  no  room  for  ‘  counsels  ’  or  '  per- 

1  K.C.,  p.  2 7,  ‘  Renunciation  of  Discerned  Evil/  cf.  p.  ii. 

2  p.  6o. 

3  Keswick  Convention,  p.  8o. 


THE  KESWICK  SCHOOL 


1 17 

missions  ’  :  every  individual  act,  sof  far  as  it  is  legitimate 
at  all,  is  viewed  as  falling  under  a  ‘  precept  ’  : 1  every  act 
of  the  Christian  should  be  an  act  of  faith,  since  whatso¬ 
ever  is  not  of  faith  is  sin.  No  one  advises,  of  course, 
that  all  automatic  and  quasi-automatic  actions  should 
be  eliminated  from  our  conduct,  or  that  every  single 
minute  act  in  our  behaviour  should  be  reflected  upon  at 
the  moment  of  its  performance,  and  brought  explicitly 
and  directly  into  relation  with  the  divine  law.  Such 
minute  self-recollection  would  be  neither  desirable  nor 
possible.  Yet  since  God's  Law — the  Voice  of  God’s 
Spirit — is  conceived  as  being  ever  at  hand  to  be  referred 
to,  it  is  therefore  our  duty  to  refer  our  conduct  to  it,  not 
only  for  the  general  ordering  of  our  course  of  life,  but  also 
whenever  temptation  or  serious  doubt  arises. 

The  Keswick  teaching  carries  us,  therefore,  somewhat 
deeper  than  the  common  discussions  about  habit  and  free 
will.  ‘  I  ought  :  therefore  I  can.’  If  a  given  act  is 
plainly  recognized  by  me,  not  merely  as  in  a  general  way 
right  and  desirable,  but  as  personally  enjoined  upon  me 
by  God,  and  to  be  done  here  and  now,  then  not  only  can  I 
do  it,  but — so  long  as  my  mind  remains  perfectly  clear 
on  the  subject — I  cannot  forbear  to  do  it.  '  Let  a  man  * 
said  Law  2  ‘  but  have  so  much  piety  as  to  intend  to  please 
God  in  all  the  actions  of  his  life,  and  then  he  will  never 
swear  more.  It  will  be  as  impossible  for  him  to  swear, 
whilst  he  feels  this  intention  within  himself,  as  it  is  im¬ 
possible  for  a  man  that  intends  to  please  his  prince,  to 
go  up  and  abuse  him  to  his  face.’  Deliberately  to  disobey 
God  to  His  face  is  a  thing  as  much  out  of  the  Christian’s 

1  Figgis,  Christ  and  Full  Salvation ,  p.  55.  For  the  Roman 
doctrine  see  Summa  Theol.  Pvima  secundae,  Qu.  cviii. 

a  Serious  Call,  chap.  ii. 


n8  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OFTOOUBT 

power  as  it  is  out  of  any  man’s  power  to  set  deliberately 
about  undoing  the  work  of  his  life  upon  which  his  whole 
heart  is  set.  If  then  we  can  contrive  that  certain  actions 
shall  not  be  done  in  the  dark — that  they  shall  be  brought 
out  into  the  full  light,  so  that  if  done  they  must  be  done 
deliberately — then  they  will  not  be  done  at  all,  and  we 
shall  have  the  victory  we  desire.1 


‘  But,  suppose  the  testimony  of  the  Keswick  teachers 
is  accepted,  has  it  any  value  for  our  present  purpose  ? 
Can  the  inward  experiences  of  victory  over  sin  be  detached 
from  their  setting  of  doctrinal  belief  ?  ’  It  is  clear,  of 
course,  that  the  attempt  to  state  the  Keswick  method  and 
the  Keswick  experience  in  such  abstract  and  impersonal 
terms  as  belong,  say,  to  the  religious  phraseology  of  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold — to  speak  of  the  ‘  Eternal  ’  rather  than  of 
God  with  the  definite  intention  of  avoiding  the  implica¬ 
tion  of  Personality — must  result  in  a  serious  impoverish¬ 
ment  of  language.  And  for  those  who  themselves 
possess  the  belief  in  God  to  adopt  such  a  change  in  their 
own  thought  and  speech  as  a  mere  psychological  ex¬ 
periment  would  be  an  act  of  reprehensible  wantonness. 

1  The  chief  danger,  indeed,  of  this  School  is  not  from  the 
side  of  Quietism  but  from  that  of  Rigorism.  Though  doubtless 
right  in  rejecting  the  Roman  distinction  between  divine  *  pre¬ 
cepts  ’  and  divine  ‘  counsels  ’,  it  has  certainly  something  to  learn 
from  the  Roman  Moral  Theology  on  the  subject  of  the  *  doubtful 
conscience  ’.  The  principle  that  '  whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is 
sin  *  is  the  very  basis  of  whole-hearted  service.  The  confusion 
between  this  principle  and  the  Rigorist  doctrine,  which  treats 
everything  which  is  *  speculatively  ’  doubtful  as  *  practically ' 
wrong,  is  a  confusion  which  may  well  be  called  deadly  in  its  con¬ 
sequences  :  and  it  is  a  confusion  into  which  more  than  one  school 
of  English  piety  has  been  in  danger  of  falling.  See  p.  2031 


THE  KESWICK  SCHOOL 


IJ9 

Yet,  if  the  power  of  whole-hearted  self-surrender  is  indeed 

what  the  Keswick  School  has  affirmed  it  to  be,  does  it 

not  follow  that  the  principle  which  can  not  only  overcome 

ordinary  temptations  and  anxieties,  but  can  be  victorious 

also  ‘  where  faith  is  small may  still  exert  its  power 

even  in  the  total  eclipse  of  doctrinal  belief  ?  To  bring 

our  sins  to  Christ  ‘  for  Him  to  deal  with  ’  involves  not 

merely  that  we  should  think  of  Him  and  them  in  some 

vague  connexion,  but  that,  from  moment  to  moment, 

we  should  think  of  each  wrong  act  as  definitely  forbidden, 

and  each  right  act  as  definitely  enjoined,  by  His  law. 

Therefore,  as  knowledge  of  His  law  is  compatible  with 

% 

an  absence  of  the  usual  Christian  beliefs  about  His  person, 
it  cannot  be  impossible  for  those  who  believe  in  Duty  but 
not  in  God  to  apply  the  Keswick  method  in  practice. 

Nor  should  this  be  regarded  by  them  as  a  mere  experi¬ 
ment.1  For  those  who  have  perceived  the  binding  char¬ 
acter  of  Christ’s  law  upon  the  conscience,  the  duty  of 
bringing  this  law  to  bear  upon  each  successive  detail  of 
conduct  is  clear  :  and  no  doctrinal  unbelief  is  any  excuse 
for  evading  this  obligation.  With  regard  to  that  which 
is  within  one’s  own  control  the  will  may  be  in  active  har¬ 
mony  with  the  ‘  Law  of  God  ’  even  though  it  be  not  called 
by  this  name  :  with  regard  to  that  which  is  outside  one’s 
own  control,  there  may  be  an  absence  of  rebellion,  a 
passive  acquiescence, — if  not  because  of  the  conviction 
that  all  is  for  the  best,  then  because  of  the  conviction 
that  it  is  forbidden  to  the  disciple  of  Jesus  to  disturb  his 
peace  by  vain  struggles  against  that  which  he  cannot 

1  A  mark  of  the  whole  Evangelical  school  has  been  the  abun¬ 
dance  of  personal  testimonies.  On  this  special  aspect  of  the 
Keswick  influence  which  is  here  referred  to,  personal  testimony 
is  not  lacking. 


120  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


alter.  And  just  as  the  experience  of  justification  is  inde¬ 
pendent  of  strong  emotion — just  as  we  find  that  it  is  a 
law  of  our  inner  life  that  the  right  will,  even  apart  from 
emotional  penitence,  brings  the  assurance  that  the  soul 
is  under  '  no  condemnation ' 1 — so  here  it  will  be  found 
to  be  a  law,  '  valid  for  every  rational  being  ’  who  seriously 
adopts  this  method,  that — quite  apart  from  the  delight 
and  happiness  which  a  clear  faith  in  God’s  providence  can 
add — there  is  for  those  who  bring  all  their  life  in  minute 

PS? 

detail  to  be  regulated  by  the  command  of  Christ,  not 
merely  agrowing  sense  of  inward  innocence,  but  also  the 
knowledge  that  they  are  in  contact  with  a  source  of  moral 
strength  which  can  never  fail. 

1  Rom.  viii.  i. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  RITSCHLIAN  REVOLUTION 

DURING  the  brief  survey  of  Evangelical  methods 
which  we  have  just  completed,  we  have  seen 
how  we  learn  in  the  practices  of  piety  the  laws  of  the 
spiritual  life — laws  as  valid  in  their  own  sphere  ‘  as  the 
laws  of  thought  or  the  laws  of  nature/1 

But  can  these  laws  be  systematically  stated  ?  And 
when  so  stated  can  they  form  the  basis  of  a  theology  ? 

To  a  Christian  apologetic  which  relies  on  moral  intuition 
and  experience  alone  this  question  is,  of  course,  vital : 
and  the  best  way,  perhaps,  to  answer  it  is  to  examine 
that  school  of  thought — in  some  respects  the  most  char¬ 
acteristic  movement  of  modem  times — which  took  its 
rise  from  Kants  formulation  of  the  '  Moral  Proof  of  God’s 
Existence  \ 


The  chief  difference  between  the  theological  method 
of  Kant  and  that  of  his  predecessors  may  be  summarized 
in  a  sentence.  While  the  older  rationalism — best  known 
through  the  Argument  from  Design — infers  the  existence 
of  God  from  the  phenomena  of  the  world,  Kant  finds 
religious  assurance  in  the  exercise  of  moral  freedom. 

1  Ritschl,  Die  Chvistliche  Lehre  von  dev  Rechtfertigung  and  Vev- 
sohnung,  vol.  iii.  p.  587  (English  translation  p.  622). 

121 


122  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Our  Moral  Reason — he  argues  1 — bids  us  aim  at  the 
highest  good.  We  cannot  reject  this  command  without 
becoming  contemptible  in  our  own  sight.  But  the 
highest  good — as  Kant  conceives  it — consists  in  the  happi¬ 
ness  of  all  moral  beings  so  far  as  they  possess  fitness  2 
to  be  happy.  If,  however,  there  is  no  God  and  no  future 
life,  this  highest  good  is  incapable  of  realization.  But 
can  our  moral  reason  bid  us  aim  at  what  we  know  to  be 
a  mere  chimera  ?  Obviously  not.  To  aim  at  what  ad¬ 
mittedly  cannot  be  realized  is  a  plainly  irrational  act. 
Therefore — Kant  concludes — the  attitude  of  the  really 
moral  man  is  inconsistent  with  religious  unbelief. 

We  must  not  confuse  this  argument  with  others  which 
have  a  similar  sound.  It  is  not — as  Professor  Huxley 
thought 3 — an  attempt  to  ‘  found  '  morality  upon  the 
assumption  of  a  future  life.  For  Kant  morality  needed 
no  such  foundation.  On  the  contrary,  he  founds  the 
hope  of  a  future  life  upon  morality.4  Reason  bids  him 
aim  at  the  summurn  bonum.  That  this  is  a  rational 
command  he  cannot  doubt.  But  reason  cannot  say 
*  Attempt  the  impossible  :  tilt  at  what  you  know  to  be 
a  windmill/  Therefore  Kant  cannot  regard  the  summurn 
bonum  as  a  mere  creature  of  fancy.  '  The  belief  in  God  ', 
he  says  5  ‘  and  in  another  world,  is  so  interwoven  with 


1  Kritik  der  TJrtheilskraft  §  87,  etc,  ( Critique  of  Judgment,  trans¬ 
lated  by  J.  H.  Bernard,  D.D.,  Macmillan,  1892). 

2  ‘  Worthiness  ’  to  be  happy  suggests  to  the  English  reader 
a  Pharisaic  *  doctrine  of  works  \  For  Kant  the  *  worthiness  ’ 
is  the  result  not  of  good  works  but  of  good  will. 

2  See  Huxley’s  Hume,  p.  180. 

4  See  TJrtheilskraft,  424  note. 

5  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Meiklejohn’s  translation  p.  502 
(German  paging  857)./ 


THE  RITSCHLIAN  REVOLUTION  123 

my  moral  nature  that  the  former  can  no  more  vanish 
than  the  latter  can  ever  be  torn  from  me.’ 

The  first  impression  produced  by  this  argument  is 
often  unfavourable.  It  reads  like  a  piece  of  sophistry. 
Yet  it  has  an  odd  way  of  returning  upon  the  mind  which 
thinks  it  has  rejected  it  :  and  the  passages  in  the  Critique 
of  Judgment  1  which  deal  with  it  are  well  worth  careful 
study. 

Our  chief  concern  here,  however,  is  not  with  this  argu¬ 
ment  for  its  own  sake,  but  with  the  general  method  of 
religious  apology  of  which  it  is  the  first  systematic  ex¬ 
ample.  Kant’s  chief  service  to  religion  is  his  distinction 
between  the  Practical  and  the  Speculative  Reason ;  and 
his  insistence  that  it  is  through  the  Practical — i.e.  the 
Moral — Reason  alone  that  we  can  either  know  God  or 
approach  Him. 2  On  this  distinction  and  on  this  principle 
a  great  school  of  theology  has  been  founded.  The 
mantle  of  Kant  has  fallen  upon  Ritschl  :  and  Ritschl  has 
carried  out  the  Kantian  method  more  successfully  in 
some  respects  than  Kant  himself. 

The  third  volume  of  Ritschl ’s  Justification  and  Recon¬ 
ciliation  3 — though  not  free  from  philosophical  defects — 
may  reasonably  be  regarded  as  the  greatest  religious 
book  of  our  time.  Its  main  contention  is  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  cannot  be  understood  except  through  those 
experiences  which  are  specifically  Christ ian— ‘  justifica¬ 
tion  *  and  ‘  reconciliation  with  God  through  Christ  \ 

1  §  87,  etc. 

2  See  Crit.  of  Judg.  §  89  (Bernard,  p.  393).  See  also  Die 
Religion  innerhalb  etc.  Viertes  Stiick  Zweiter  Theil.  §  2. 
Alles  was,  etc.  See  also  same  section  (§  2)  near  the  end. 

3  Die  Christliche  Lehre  von  der  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung, 


124  RELIGION  IN  AN  ^GE  OF  DOUBT 

Ritschl  refuses  therefore  to  explain  justification  by  legal 
analogies.1  Indeed  he  rejects  from  Christian  theology 
all  arguments  which  2  are  '  purely  rational  ’ — that  is,  all 
arguments  (such  as  the  Argument  from  Design)  which 
are  intelligible  apart  from  a  distinctive  Christian  experi¬ 
ence.  '  Whoso  willeth  to  do  God’s  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  doctrine.’3  ‘  We  are  able,’  says  Ritschl  ‘  to  know 
and  understand  God,  sin,  conversion,  eternal  life  in  the 
Christian  sense,  only  so  far  as  we  consciously  and  in¬ 
tentionally  reckon  ourselves  members  of  the  community 
which  Christ  has  founded.’4 

Thus  knowledge  of  God  is  attained  by  an  act  of  Will,5 
and  is  quite  independent  of  the  usual  ‘  arguments  for 
God’s  existence'’,  which  Ritschl  distrusts.6  So  far  as  we 
subordinate  ourselves  to  Christ,  we  gain  the  experience 
of  ‘  reconciliation  ’7 — the  sense  of  being  justified  by  the 
very  law  against  which  we  have  offended.  In  reconcilia¬ 
tion  we  enjoy  a  sense  of  'lordship  over  the  world.’8 


1  Vol.  in.  p.  84,  etc.  (English  trans.  p.  86). 

2  P.  5  (E.T.  5). 

3  St.  John  vii.  17.  See  Ritschl,  vol.  iii.  p.  8  (Eng.  trans. 

p.  8). 

4  P.  4  (Eng.  trans.  p.  4). 

5  Ritschl’s  language  is  more  explicitly  Christian  than  Kant’s  : 
and  he  holds  that  unlike  Kant  he  is  not  '  founding  the  Christian 
religion  upon  morality  ’  (see  p.  215  note,  E.T.  p.  226).  But  he 
is  at  one  with  Kant  in  making  religion  a  matter  primarily  of  the 
will  not  of  the  intellect :  in  basing  religious  knowledge  upon  acts 
of  obedience  and  judgments  of  value — judgments  which  have 
*  spiritual  ’  as  distinct  from  *  intellectual  ’  worth,  since  they  can¬ 
not  be  attained  by  cold  reasoning  alone  without  some  goodness 
of  heart. 

6  P.  17  (E.T.  17) ;  p.  203,  etc.  (E.T.  214,  etc.). 

7  P.  132  (E.T.  139)  etc.,  etc. 

8  P.  308  (E.T.  326)  etc.,  etc. 


THE  RITSCHLIAN  REVOLUTION 


125 


And  this  is  associated  with  trust  in  God,  in  the  sense  that 
‘  the  activity  of  God  becomes  to  us  a  matter  of  convic¬ 
tion  through  the  attitude  we  take  up  to  the  world  as 
religious  men.’  1 

This  general  position  is  developed  by  Ritschl  in  detail 
by  means  of  his  well-known  doctrine  of  the  Judgment 
of  Value  (Werthurtheil).  ‘  Value- judgments  ’  of  a  sort 
are  implied  in  all  knowledge  ;  since  without  a  belief 
in  its  value — without  ‘  interest  ’ — f  we  do  not  trouble 
ourselves  about  anything/2  But  while  in  science  the 
judgment  of  value  is  a  mere  '  concomitant  ’,  in  religion  it 
is  the  heart  of  the  matter.3  ‘  Religious  knowledge 4 
moves  in  independent  value- judgments,  which  relate  to 
man's  attitude  to  the  world,  and  call  forth  feelings  of 
pleasure  or  pain,  in  which  man  either  enjoys  the  dominion 
over  the  world  vouchsafed  him  by  God,  or  feels  grievously 
the  lack  of  God’s  help  to  that  end.’ 

Is  Ritschl,  then,  drawing  the  simple  distinction  between 
‘  judgments  of  value  ’  and  ‘  judgments  of  fact  ’  with 
which  recent  discussion  has  made  us  familiar  ?  Does  he 
teach  that  religion  is  not  concerned  with  facts  but  with 
ideals  only — that  if  God  is  an  ennobling  conception  it 
makes  no  matter  whether  He  is  real  ?  that  in  asserting 
that  a  belief  is  true  we  mean  no  more  than  that  it  is  edify¬ 
ing  ?  In  a  word,  is  Ritschl  a  Pragmatist  ? 

1  P.  207.  In  the  English  trans.  (p.  218),  the  force  of  the  con¬ 
trast  between  IVirklichkeit  and  Wirksamkeit  is  necessarily  lost. 

2  P.  195  (E.  Tr.  204). 

3  P.  195  (E.  Tr.  204),  and  therefore  ‘  independent  ’  ( seibstandig ). 

4  P.  195  (E.  Tr.  205).  The  words  f  or  it  may  be  ’ — in  the 
English  translation  on  page  205,  line  3 — are  slightly  misleading. 


126  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Assuredly  not.  The  teaching  of  Ritschl  is  so  essen¬ 
tially  different  from  Pragmatism  that  it  is  strange  they 
should  ever  have  been  confused.1  It  is  impossible  to 
read  him  with  care  without  at  once  perceiving  that  he 
feels  his  religious  knowledge  to  be  in  its  own  sphere 
‘  absolute and  also  to  be  a  knowledge  of  what  ‘  is  ’ 
as  well  as  of  what  ‘  ought  to  be/.  He  believes  in  the 
reality  of  guilt,  in  the  reality  of  justification.2  Indeed  he 
even  falls  foul  of  the  particular  way  in  which  Kant 
states  that  great  fundamental  distinction  which  has 
entered  so  deeply  into  Ritschl ’s  own  thought — the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  Speculative  and  Practical  Reason. 
Knowledge  of  the  laws  of  our  action,  he  points  out,  is 
itself  ‘  speculative  ’  :  it  is  ‘  theoretical  knowledge,  the 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  our  spiritual  life/3 

The  difference  which  Ritschl  finds  between  theoretical 
knowledge  and  religious  knowledge  is  concerned  not 
with  the  character  of  the  objects  known — since  in  both 
cases  the  object  is  the  world  4 — but  with  the  different 
way  in  which  the  world  is  regarded  by  science  and  re¬ 
ligion  respectively.5  He  compares  the  ‘  certainty  of 

1  ‘  Truth  ’  says  Prof.  James  (. Pragmatism ,  p.  77)  *  is  what  it 
would  be  better  for  us  to  believe.’  ‘  An  idea  is  true  ’  (p.  75) 
*  so  long  as  to  believe  it  is  profitable  to  our  fives.’  The  Profes¬ 
sor  desired,  no  doubt,  by  these  paradoxical  utterances  to  call 
attention  to  certain  neglected  aspects  of  philosophic  truth.  His 
statements,  none  the  less,  are,  as  they  stand,  absurd.  It  may 
be  good  for  an  intending  thief — it  may  be  f  profitable  for  his 
fife  ’ — to  believe  that  he  is  watched  by  the  police.  But  it  is 
not  necessarily  true. 

2  See  e.g.  p.  31,  fine  20,  etc.  (E.  Tr.  p.  31  bottom). 

3  21 1  (E.  Tr.  222)  cf.  note  on  p.  215  (E.T.  226).  These  two 
passages  alone  are  sufficient  defence  against  the  imputation  of 
Pragmatism. 

4  See  p.  193  (E.T.  203). 

5  See  p.  587  (E.T.  622).  The  usual  religious  doctrine  of  Provi- 


THE  RITSCHLIAN  REVOLUTION 


127 


divine  providence  ’  with  the  ‘  certainty  of  our  own  ex¬ 
istence  \  ‘  To  become  certain  of  our  own  Ego  we  do  not 

need  a  scientific  analysis  of  its  grounds  and  conditions, 
or  an  empirical  explanation  of  its  origin/  We  know  it  by 
the  exercise — or  by  the  restriction — of  our  ‘  independent 
activity/1  Similarly  ‘we  believe  in  divine  Providence, 
not  because  we  can  follow  or  demonstrate  its  course 
clearly  and  completely,  in  other  words,  objectively/2 
but  because  of  those  ‘  voluntary  activities  in  which  man 
appropriates  the  operations  of  God/3  The  most  influ¬ 
ential  beliefs  are  not  always  those  which  are  scientifically 
clearest.4  Just  as,  for  example,  I  may  have  no  scientific 
knowledge  of  the  exact  proportion  between  the  strength 
of  my  horse’s  muscles  and  the  strength  of  my  own  will¬ 
power  and  yet  may  be  absolutely  sure  that  I  can  master 
him — just  as  a  British  Pro-Consul  may  have  no  exact  esti¬ 
mate  of  the  forces  with  which  he  will  have  to  contend 
and  yet  may  be  quite  confident  in  the  ultimate  triumph 
of  the  Imperial  Power — so  apart  from  any  scientific 
theory  as  to  providential  methods,  ‘  faith  in  divine  provi¬ 
dence  ’  is  the  ‘  normal  tone  of  feeling  ’  of  the  Christian, 
and  may  be  compared  with  the  unscientific  but  justifiable 
self-confidence  with  which  a  strong  man  meets  his  an¬ 
tagonists.5  Clearly  such  ‘  judgments  of  value  ’  are  partly 
‘  judgments  of  fact  ’  . 

dence  says — *  I  am  intended  by  my  Creator  to  triumph  over 
the  obstacles  that  oppose  me.’  A  high-minded  Agnosticism 
would  say  ‘  The  rational  interests  of  man  are  worthy  to  triumph 
over  these  obstacles.’  Ritschl’s  attitude  lies  between  the  two. 
‘  I  am  sure  that,  as  a  member  of  Christ’s  redeemed  community, 
I  shall  be  able  to  triumph  over  them.’ 

1  Pp.  587,  588  (E.T.  622). 

3  Pp-  33-34  (E.T.  34). 

5  Pp.  588,  etc.  (E.T.  622,  etc.). 


2  P.  587. 
4  P-  587. 


128  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


The  confusion  of  Ritschl  with  the  Pragmatists  has 
tended,  in  fact,  to  obscure  the  issue.  Pectus  facit  theologum. 
The  very  pith  of  the  Ritschlian  thought  is  summed  up 
in  this  ancient  saying ;  of  which  Ritschl  has  for  the  first 
time  made  a  really  consistent  application.  Theology, 
he  holds,  is  a  matter  of  ‘  will  ’  and  ‘  character  ’  rather 
than  of  f  intellect  \  Religious  knowledge  is  to  be  attained, 
not  by  cold  reasoning  but  by  personal  religious  experience. 
Our  standing  before  God  depends  not  on  our  belief  in  the 
‘  mystery  of  Christ’s  Two  Natures  ’1  but  on  our  voluntary 
attitude  towards  Him  and  the  Redeemed  Community  of 
which  He  is  the  Founder. 

It  is  quite  in  accordance  with  these  conceptions  that 
Ritschl  directs  his  chief  polemic  against  the  f  objective 
method  ’.  We  cannot  write  a  satisfactory  theology 
in  the  form  of  a  ‘  narrative  ’2 — a  mere  '  record  of  the 
great  deeds  done  by  God.’  ‘  The  more  objectively  the 
truths  of  Christianity  are  handed  down  in  narrative  form, 
the  closer  at  hand  will  doubt  be  found.’3  And  thus  we 
are  prepared  for  his  assertion  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  ‘  disinterested  knowledge  of  God  ’  :4  that  we  can 
know  God  only  by  trusting  Him  :5  that  God  and  Christ 
can  be  known  to  man  only  through  our  discovery  of  their 
‘  value  for  ourselves.’6 


The  usual  Anglican  criticism  of  this  theology  is  that  it  is 
‘  too  subjective  ’.  Catholicism — it  is  said — sees  God  in 
glory  surrounded  by  saints  and  angels  ;  Protestantism 

1  P.  370,  etc.  (E.T.  p.  391,  etc.). 

2  See  pp.  33-34,  etc.,  etc.  (E.T.  34-35)- 

3  P.  34  (E.T.  35).  4  P.  202  (E.T.  212). 

6  P.  202  (E.T.  213).  6  P.  202  (E.T.  212). 


THE  RITSCHLIAN  REVOLUTION  129 

sees  only  its  own  sins  and  their  forgiveness.  Catholic 
worship,  therefore,  is  a  nobler  thing,  even  in  its  most 
childish  forms,  than  the  Methodism  which  keeps  its  eye 
ever  fixed  upon  its  own  navel. 

This  kind  of  criticism,  sound  enough  in  its  proper 
place,  is  here  beside  the  mark.  We  may  admit  that  if 
Ritschl  had  had  a  deeper  insight  into  the  type  of  piety 
expressed  in  certain  medieval  hymns — which  while 
*  objective  '  and  even  '  narrative  ’  in  form  are  passionately 
religious  in  spirit  1 — he  might  possibly  have  stated  his 
meaning  somewhat  differently.  But  what  he  has  at 
heart  2  is  to  insist  that  ‘  in  theology,  however  coolly  we 
may  sketch  out  its  formal  relations,  we  have  to  do  with 
spiritual  processes  of  such  a  kind  that  our  salvation 
depends  on  them/  It  is  plain  that  knowledge  on  such 
a  subject  cannot  be  disinterested  ;  nor  can  it  be  gained 
by  purely  ‘  objective  '  methods.  God  is  not  known  till 
He  is  reverenced  :  but  in  reverence  we  bring  Him  into 
relation  with  subjective  feelings  of  our  own. 

If  it  is  complained  that  Ritschl  is  ‘  too  subjective  *  in 
his  theory  of  knowledge,  the  accusation  is  partly  true.3 
He  did  not  wholly  escape  the  prevalent  tendencies  of  his 
time.  But  even  this  criticism  is  not  much  to  the  point ; 
since  Ritschl’s  theory  of  knowledge  is  incidental  only. 
His  interest  is  centred,  not  upon  philosophy,  but  upon 
religion. 

Against  the  confusion  of  his  doctrine  with  Mysticism — 
though  the  mistake  still  continues  to  be  made — Ritschl 
has  himself  sufficiently  guarded  us.  That  his  religion  is 
very  far  from  being  an  ‘  amorous  duet  between  the  soul 

1  Cf.  his  remark  on  ‘  Egoism  \  p.  418  (E.T.  442). 

*  P.  34  (E.T.  35). 

3  E-  34  (E.T.  34).  j 

K 


130  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


and  God  ’,  that  he  is  jealously  concerned  for  a  recognition 
of  the  place  of  the  redeemed  community  in  the  Christian 
life,  is  apparent  in  every  chapter. 

But  in  order  to  grasp  the  real  significance  of  Ritschl’s 
teaching,  we  need  something  more  than  a  mere  defence  of  it 
against  criticism. 

His  special  achievement  has  been  to  produce  a  school  of 
Christian  apologetic  which  makes  its  appeal  to  the  typical 
modern  man.  The  educated  man  of  to-day — speaking 
roughly  and  broadly — disbelieves  in  miracles  and  dis¬ 
trusts  metaphysics.  In  producing  a  theology  which 
depends  on  neither,  Ritschl  has  done,  surely,  a  great 
service  to  his  generation.  And  if  the  modern  sceptic 
is  partly  right — if  miraculous  ‘  evidences  ’  and  philosophi¬ 
cal  '  proofs’,1  however  valuable  in  themselves,  are  still 
secondary  and  not  primary  in  religion — then  Ritschl 
has  done  a  service  not  to  his  own  age  alone  but  to  mankind. 
On  this  view  the  supreme  test  of  the  value  of  his  method 
will  be  in  its  application  to  doctrinal  scepticism  of  an 
extreme  kind. 

1  i  Cor.  i.  22. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


RITSCHLIANISM  AND  CHRISTOLOGY 
HAT  success,  then,  can  the  Ritschlian  method 


have  with  those  who  believe  in  Duty  but 


disbelieve  in  God  ? 

The  complete  answer  to  this  question  can  be  learned 
in  practice  only.  Yet  the  following  remarks  may  serve 
to  indicate  the  direction  in  which  this  answer  is  to  be 
sought. 

It  is  clear,  in  the  first  place,  that  much  of  our  religious 
knowledge  consists  of  ‘  judgments  of  value  ’  in  the  simplest 
sense  of  the  phrase  :  and  is  therefore  quite  independent 
of  the  dogmas  of  traditional  religion. 

Take,  for  example,  the  doctrine  of  Nature  and  Grace. 
The  verification  of  this  doctrine  is  open  to  all  those  who 
*  take  Christ’s  yoke  ’  upon  them.  In  such  whole- 
hearted  submission,  we  shall  assuredly  learn  to  contrast 
the  two  rival  impulses  which  will  henceforth  be  at  war 
within  the  soul.  To  ask,  therefore,  how  it  is  possible  to 
believe  in  ‘  grace  ’  without  believing  in  the  God  Who 
gives  it,  is  to  miss  the  point  at  issue.  The  matter  of 
primary  moment  is  neither  the  name  by  which  this 
impulse  is  called,  nor  our  theory  as  to  its  origin.  The 
primary  matter  is  to  recognize  its  character  ;  to  distin¬ 
guish  the  supreme  conflict  between  Grace  and^Nature  from 


131 


132  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

the  conflicts— known  even  to  the  worldliest  of  Pagans — 
between  impulses  which  are  amiable  and  impulses  which 
are  less  so.  The  Pagan  contrast  between  ‘  things  which 
are  better  ’  and  ‘  things  which  are  worse  ’  cannot  be  trans¬ 
formed  into  Christian  belief  by  merely  ascribing  the  better 
impulses  to  God’s  gift.  But  when  we  come  to  see  that, 
in  the  choice  between  the  world  and  Christ,  the  contest 
is  between  darkness  on  the  one  hand  and  absolute  light 
on  the  other — that  here  is  the  one  supreme  issue  in  com¬ 
parison  with  which  all  else  in  the  world  is  unimportant — 
this  is  a  Christian  judgment  even  in  the  total  absence  of 
any  definite  theological  background. 

It  is  true,  secondly,  that  many  religious  beliefs  which 
are  commonly  supposed  to  be  ‘  judgments  of  fact  ’  are  in 
reality  *  judgments  of  value’. 

To  ignore  this  is  to  do  injustice  to  believer  and  unbe¬ 
liever  alike.  Consider,  for  example,  the  doctrine  of  God’s 
wrath  and  future  punishment.  To  those  who  know  reli¬ 
gion  from  the  outside  only,  the  belief  in  a  God  Who  is 
angry  with  the  creatures  of  His  hand,  and  has  invented 
strange  and  arbitrary  methods  for  His  own  appeasement, i 
seems — naturally  enough — a  mere  survival  of  barbarian 
mythology.  The  believer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  apt  to 
regard  the  unbeliever  as  lacking  in  moral  seriousness. 
If  we  question  those  who  insist  upon  the  eternity  of 
punishment,  we  can  generally  at  once  discover  their 
motive.  To  deny  that  punishment  is  eternal  involves  in 
their  minds  the  denial  of  the  absoluteness  of  moral  dis- 

1  *  Popular  Christianity  has  for  its  central  mystery  an  insane 
vengeance  bought  off  by  a  trumpery  expiation.’  Mr.  Bernard 
Shaw’s  Major  Barbara.  ( First  aid  to  Critics.  Christianity  and 
Anarchism). 


RITSCHLIANISM  AND  CHRISTOLOGY  133 


tinctions  ;  of  the  ultimate  difference  between  obedience 
and  rebellion.  In  other  words,  what  seems  to  the  unbe¬ 
liever  to  be  a  judgment  of  fact,  is — in  the  religious  man’s 
own  mind — primarily  a  judgment  of  value. 

If  we  regarded  God  as  a  ‘  person  in  history  ’A  our 
religion  would  then  indeed  be  the  degraded  mythology 
which  the  unbeliever  thinks  it.  But  to  those  who  know 
religion  from  within,  God  is  never  a  Person  merely. 
Though  the  Christian  loves  to  think  of  a  divine  Father 
into  Whose  ears  he  can  pour  his  complaint,  it  is  still  true 
that  his  primary  knowledge  of  God  is  through  the  Spirit. 
In  other  words  we  must  know  God  first  as  a  principle 
within  us  before  we  can  profitably  think  of  Him  as  a 
person  outside  of  us.1 2  This  is  the  true  order — as  observ¬ 
ation  will  show — even  in  the  religion  of  the  very  simplest. 

It  is  the  knowledge  of  God  as  an  inward  Principle  which 
alone  gives  religious  meaning  to  the  doctrine  of  God’s 
wrath.3  There  are  extreme  expressions  on  this  subject 


1  Loisy,  Autour  d'un  petit  livre,  p.  10. 

2  It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  many  simple  Christians — 
without  the  smallest  desire  to  deny  the  personality  of  the  Holy 
Ghost — do  yet  habitually  follow  the  example  of  the  English 
Bible  (Rom.  viii.  26)  and  speak  of  the  Spirit  in  the  neuter.  Cf. 
Anselm’s  Id  quo  nil  majus  cogitari  potest. 

3  For  many  believers  in  the  eternity  of  punishment  the  doc¬ 
trine  seems  to  be  hardly  a  ‘  judgment  of  fact  ’  at  all.  They  are 
affirming  a  principle  :  they  are  not  really  picturing  a  future 
event.  To  others  who  quite  definitely  accept  Hell  as  a  real 
place  or  state,  it  is  still  the  principle — the  heinousness  of  impeni¬ 
tent  rebellion — which  is  most  prominent  in  their  minds.  The 
principle  seems  sure,  and  belief  in  Hell  seems  its  natural  conse¬ 
quence.  The  difficulties,  they  feel,  are  for  God  to  solve  and  not 
for  them.  The  more,  however,  that  the  belief  in  eternal  punish¬ 
ment  becomes  really — what  it  is  professedly — a  *  judgment  of 
fact  ’,  the  less  likely  is  it  to  maintain  its  place  in  religion. 


134  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


which  we  shall,  no  doubt,  do  well  to  avoid.  To  speak  of 
Jesus  as  '  smoothing  the  angry  Father’s  face  ’  is  unques¬ 
tionably  misleading.  Yet  to  one  who  knows  his  guilt, 
and  so  has  come  under  his  own  wrath,  not  even  the  extrem- 
est  representation  of  the  wrath  of  God  will  be  unintelli¬ 
gible  :  while  to  those  to  whom  conviction  of  sin  is  unknown, 
the  Christian  religion  will  be  a  mere  mythology  to  the  end. 
The  wrath  of  a  ‘  magnified  non-natural  man  ’ — a  Creator 
Who  is  at  once  too  near  and  too  far  off,  Who  resembles  us 
in  personality  and  yet  is  bound  to  us  by  purely  external 
relations — could  only  provoke  just  rebellion  and  unanswer¬ 
able  retorts.1 

Consider,  thirdly,  the  cases  where  judgments  of  value 
and  judgments  of  fact  are  necessarily  bound  together. 
Along  with  the  judgment  of  value  which  perceives  the 
absolute  claims  of  the  impulse  which  we  call  Grace,  goes 
the  judgment  of  fact  which  perceives  the  power  of  this 
impulse  in  those  who  wholeheartedly  take  Jesus  for  their 
Master. 

It  is  thus,  then,  that — without  any  reliance  on  super¬ 
natural  dogmas,  and  without  any  excursion  into  metaphy¬ 
sics — we  find  ourselves  in  possession  of  the  materials  for 
the  construction  of  a  Christian  theology  :  a  theology 
which  shall  include  a  doctrine  of  Grace,  a  doctrine  of 
Adoption — since  no  one  who  has  fallen  decisively  under 
the  influence  of  Christ  can  doubt  that  it  is  in  some  sense 
‘  through  Him  ’ 2  that  we  ourselves  come  into  a  changed 

1  See  Omar  Khayyam,  stanza  58. 

*  See  Ritschl’s  contrast  between  the  position  of  Jesus  in  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  that  of  Gautama  in  Buddhism,  pp.  364,  365,  E.T, 

385,  387- 


RITSCHLIANISM  AND  CHRISTOLOGY  135 


relation  with  the  Moral  Law,  a  ‘  new  birth’,  a  *  new 
sonship  ’ 1  which  yet  is  never  fully  equal  to  that  air  of 
‘  complete  guiltlessness  and  filial  relation  with  the 
Father  ’  which  appears  to  belong  to  Him  ‘  by  nature  ’  2 — 
and  lastly  a  doctrine  of  God. 

Though  the  ‘  personality  of  God  ’  was  an  article  of 
faith  with  Ritschl  himself,  it  is  not  clear  that  this  doctrine 
can  be  established  by  means  of  the  characteristic  princi¬ 
ples  of  his  system.  This  is  unquestionably  a  serious 
admission.  Yet  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  here  the  defin¬ 
ition  of  God  which  satisfied  so  truly  religious  a  man  as 
St.  Louis  of  France.  To  the  definite  question  ‘  What  is 
God  ?  ’  he  approved  the  answer '  God  is  so  good  a  thing 
that  there  can  be  no  better.’  In  this  sense  Christian 
experience — apart  both  from  miracle  and  from  philosophy 
— can  bring  us  into  assured  contact  with  God.  In 
reconciliation  through  penitence  we  attain  a  peace  of 
mind,  an  inward  self-respect,  which  we  know  to  be  above 
all  price,  and  thus  a  contact  with  Something  to  Which — 
however  else  we  may  conceive  it — we  can  ascribe  absolute 
truth  and  supreme  value. 

The  prevalence  of  the  '  objective  method  ’  has  really 
disguised  from  us  the  strength  which  the  argument  from 
experience  possesses.  Its  value  may  be  made  clearer  by 
a  comparison.  Imagine  a  painter  replying  to  sceptical 
doubts  as  to  the  worth  and  reality  of  beauty  ;  or  a  phy¬ 
sicist  defending  the  truth  and  value  of  his  own  branch 
of  science.  Both  of  them  would  rely  in  the  last  resort  on 


1  For  those  who  believe  in  no  personal  God,  the  words  '  Son- 
ship  ’  and  ‘  Adoption  ’  will  remain  metaphors  ;  but  they  may 
still  describe  a  real  and  vivid  experience. 

*  See  chap.  x.  p.  91. 


136  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


the  certainty  gained  in  long  experience.  Regarded  as  a 
piece  of  dialectic,  their  defence  might  be  a  very  lame 
affair.  Yet  not  even  the  acutest  sceptic  would  really 
shake  in  them  the  convictions  of  a  lifetime,  or  instil  into 
their  minds  any  doubt  of  the  value  of  their  results  and 
the  general  correctness  of  their  methods.  In  religion 
there  grows  up,  in  spite  of  frequent  failure,  a  similar 
confidence  in  the  worth  and  power  of  Grace — not  the 
reasoned  confidence  of  philosophy  but  the  practical 
confidence  of  successful  achievement.  It  is  just  this 
assurance  of  correctness  and  success  which  is  the  essential 
element  in  the  ‘  happiness  ’  which  the  simple  believer  is 
apt  to  allege  as  an  evidence.  In  this  he  is  following  a 
sound  instinct.  The  test  of  the  rationality  of  a  belief 
is  its  power  to  persist  when  it  has  been  freely  subjected  to 
counter-suggestions  or  criticisms.  We  distinguish  a  sane 
belief  from  an  obsession  mainly  by  the  capacity  of  the 
former  to  fit  itself  into  the  general  scheme  of  our  know¬ 
ledge  :  to  find  a  place  in  that  view  of  the  world  which  we 
share  with  other  men. 

Thus  the  final  answer  to  those  who  doubt  the  Christian 
method  must  always  lie  in  the  advice  to  try  it.1  To  the 
mere  spectator,  the  desire  to  follow  Christ  may  seem  an 
idle  fancy  ;  a  passing  craze  like  the  dreams  of  a  stage- 
struck  boy.  But  when  we  find  by  actual  practice  that  it 
is  something  more  solid  than  this,  we  shall  then  proceed 
further.  Experience  reveals  not  only  values  but  facts. 
We  shall  find  that  innocence  before  the  Moral  Law  is 
actually  attainable.  Not  only  is  the  law  true  ;  it  is  also 
an  effective  impulse  towards  its  own  fulfilment.  In 

1  Even  in  the  older  Churches  professions  of  Christian  service 
will  not  always  be  rejected  on  the  mere  ground  of  doctrinal 
unbelief. 


RITSCHLIANISM  AND  CHRISTOLOGY  137 

coming  thus  in  contact  with  an  inexhaustible  source1  of 
moral  strength  we  shall  not  long  doubt  that  we  are  in 
contact  with  God.  Therefore  the  vital  question  is  not 
whether  this  impulse  is  a  Personal  Being,  but  whether  we 
are  able  to  distinguish,  among  the  various  impulses  to 
which  we  are  subject,  one  which  is  absolutely  true  and 
right  in  its  nature,  and  right  by  no  mere  chance  or  acci¬ 
dent — such  an  impulse  as  it  could  never  be  lawful  to 
resist. 

There  is  a  sense,  however,  in  which  the  Ritschlian 
method  brings  us  to  a  knowledge,  not  only  of  God,  but  of  a 
God  Who  is  f  personal  ’  :  and  no  part  of  Ritschl’s  great 
treatise  is  worthy  of  more  careful  study  than  the  chapters 
in  which  he  maintains  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ. 

'  The  divinity  of  Our  Lord  ’ — it  is  sometimes  objected— 

‘  which  can  be  established  on  a  basis  of  inward  experience, 
will  be  a  "  moral  divinity  ”  at  best/ 

The  question  turns  on  what  “  moral  divinity  ”  means. 
If  we  merely  call  Jesus  God  by  courtesy  because  He  is  the 
best  of  good  men,  the  divine  title  has  here  no  theological 
worth.  But  if  we  recognize  His  absolute  supremacy  in  the 
moral  sphere — in  such  a  sense  that  we  identify  the  ‘  Will 
of  Jesus  *  with  the  ‘  Will  of  God  ’ — we  shall  then  not 
hesitate  to  ‘  honour  the  Son  even  as  we  honour  the 
Father',  and  Jesus  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  words  will 
have  for  us  the  ‘  value  of  God  \  Magna  ars  est  scire  con - 

1  All  that  '  experience  ’  in  the  narrowest  sense  can  show  is 
that  the  source  of  inward  strength  is  not  as  yet  exhausted.  Yet 
does  any  one  who  has  had  such  spiritual  experience  ever  doubt 
that  this  source  of  strength  is  not  merely  ‘  unexhausted  ’  but 
‘  inexhaustible  ’  ?  Ritschl’s  use  of  the  word  ‘  experience  ’ 
differs  from  Kant’s. 


138  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


versari  cum  Jesu.  Yet,  in  spite  of  the  difficulty  of  the 
lesson,  Christendom  has  not  wholly  failed  to  learn  it : 
nor  have  there  ever  been  wanting  those  who  when  they 
have  heard  His  voice  have  admitted  its  absolute  claim 
upon  their  obedience.  And  if  Jesus  has  this  absolute 
claim  to  rule  our  conduct,  then  Jesus  is  our  God. 

Here,  then,  is  to  be  seen  more  clearly  than  elsewhere 
the  exact  nature  of  the  revolution  which  Ritschl  has 
effected  in  theology.  Divinity  is  discovered  to  be  prim¬ 
arily  a  moral  attribute.  Whereas  the  older  theology 
argues  that  Jesus  is  to  be  obeyed  in  all  things,  because 
Jesus  is  God,  Ritschl  contends  rather  that  Jesus  is  God 
because  He  is  worthy  of  absolute  obedience. 

May  we  not,  further,  affirm  with  confidence  that 
this  latter  order  is  the  right  one  ?  If  Jupiter  had  made 
and  governed  the  world,  he  would  still  not  be  God,  because 
he  would  not  be  worthy  of  our  worship.  Jesus  is  worthy 
of  our  worship  whether  He  has  made  the  world  or  not  : 
since  it  is  on  His  goodness,  not  on  His  power,  that  His 
claim  to  be  our  Lord  depends. 

Hence  it  follows — not  that  His  exaltation,  His  pre¬ 
existence,  His  activity  in  Creation,  are  unimportant 
matters — but  that  though  important  they  are  not  primary. 
To  the  soul  which  does  not  bow  before  Jesus  in  absolute 
homage,  no  demonstration  of  His  pre-existence  or  omni¬ 
potence  would  reveal  His  Godhead.  To  the  soul  which 
does  so  bow  before  Him,  His  Godhead  is  revealed  whether 
these  doctrines  are  accepted  or  not. 

Orthodox  theology  has,  in  fact,  not  always  been  true 
to  itself.  It  has  professed  the  principle  that  the  Incarna¬ 
tion  is  the  supreme  revelation  of  God  :  and  then — instead 


RITSCHLIANISM  AND  CHRISTOLOGY  139 

of  basing  its  conceptions  of  God  upon  Jesus — it  has  rather 
based  its  conceptions  of  Jesus  upon  a  priori  theories  of 
God.  The  result  is  that  it  has  placed  His  divinity  not 
in  what  has  been  revealed,  but  in  what  is  hidden  :  not  in 
the  compelling  power  of  His  words  and  life,  but  in  some¬ 
thing  that  is  inferred  to  exist  behind  it.  The  inferences 
may  all  be  sound,  but  still  the  method  is  not  what  it 
professes  to  be. 

The  more  modem  tendencies  in  theology  suggest  a 
wiser  procedure.  They  recall  us  to  the  very  test  which 
was  proposed  to  the  first  disciples.  Can  we  recognize 
the  Godhead  of  Jesus  in  the  midst  of  His  humiliation  ? 
Have  we  faith  to  perceive  that  even  if  He  did  not 
receive  exaltation  He  was  alone  supremely  worthy  of 
it — that  it  is  indeed  a  greater  thing  to  have  lived  the  life 
of  Jesus  than  to  have  created  the  world  ?  Those  who 
demand  external  evidence  to  prove  that  He  is  ‘  no  impos¬ 
tor  '  are  merely  confessing  that  they  themselves  have  not 
yet  seen  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Those  who  say  that  unless  He  created  the  world  He  is 
not  '  really  God  confess  that  they  do  not  yet  know  what 
true  Godhead  means.  When  we  know  that  Jesus  is  our 
lawful  Master  it  adds  vigour  to  our  efforts  to  know  that  He 
is  on  the  throne  of  heaven  ;  but  though  His  exaltation 
adds  to  our  joy  it  adds  nothing  to  His  Godhead  :  for 
truly  to  know  the  Sufferer  Who  reveals  Himself  in  Gethse- 
mane  and  Calvary  is  to  know  Him  to  be  none  else  but  God. 
In  each  such  manifestation  He  shows  Himself  divine  : 
and  if  in  them  we  do  not  see  Him  as  God,  we  do  not  see 
Him  as  He  is.  Whiteness — said  Aristotle — is  no  whiter 
for  being  eternally  white.1  Jesus  becomes  no  more  truly 
God  for  being  eternally  and  pre-existently  divine. 


1  Eth.  Nic.  i.  6. 


140  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

Should  we  not  then — instead  of  looking  for  external 
proofs — first  make  Jesus  Himself  the  sole  standard  of 
Godhead  ?  We  want  no  higher  God  than  He  ;  we  know 
that  no  higher  God  is  conceivable  or  possible.  We  know 
that  if  the  Will  of  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe  differs  from 
the  Law  revealed  by  Jesus,  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe 
falls  short  of  true  divinity.  If  the  Ruler  of  the  Universe 
had  been  as  the  Jews  conceived  Him, — if  He  had  forsaken 
Jesus  upon  the  Cross, — it  would  change  our  whole  con¬ 
ception  of  the  world.  But  how  should  it  change  our 
estimate  of  Jesus  ?  Would  it  not  still  remain  true  that 
only  the  God  Who  can  be  identified  with  Jesus  has  a  just 
claim  upon  the  worship  of  mankind  ? 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  ‘  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN  ' 

IT  has  been  the  aim  of  all  the  preceding  chapters  to 
press  upon  the  Christian  preacher  the  importance  of 
the  lesson  taught  by  Ritschl,  and  to  maintain  that  the 
whole  of  our  theology  needs  revision  in  the  light  of  the 
Ritschlian  criticism. 

But,  though  this  is  the  subject  with  which  we  have  been 
expressly  engaged,  another  conclusion  has  come  to  light 
meanwhile,  which  is  hardly  less  important.  Although 
the  foundations  of  theology  can  be  laid  in  moral  and 
religious  experience  just  as  Ritschl  teaches,  this  method 
seems  insufficient  by  itself  to  complete  the  superstructure. 
The  belief  in  God  as  a  conscious  Being,  the  faith  in  Special 
Providence,  the  hope  of  glory  in  the  world  to  come,  can 
hardly  be  dismissed  as  extraneous  additions  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Creed.  But  none  of  these  beliefs  can  be  learned  from 
moral  intuition  or  direct  experience  alone.  If  they  are  to 
be  rationally  defended  at  all,  this  must  be  done  by  means 
of  a  chain  of  reasoning.  Therefore — unless  we  regard 
these  doctrines  as  devoid  of  religious  value — we  shall 
inevitably  be  led  back  to  the  consideration  of  those 
f  rationalistic  ’  arguments,  such  as  the  '  Argument  from 
Design',  of  which  the  Ritschlians  have  been  apt  to  speak 
too  slightingly.1 

1  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung,  p.  590  (E.  tr.  p.  625). 

141 


142  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

The  Argument  from  Design  is  at  the  present  moment 
under  a  cloud.  ‘  The  discovery  of  Natural  Selection  ’ — 
says  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  in  a  well-turned  phrase — might  be 
described  as  The  revelation  of  a  method  by  which  all  the 
appearances  of  intelligent  design  in  the  Universe  may 
have  been  produced  by  pure  accident .  *  1  N atural  Selection 
— even  if  it  had  remained  an  unverified  hypothesis — could 
not  but  suggest  a  doubt.  May  it  not  be  that  what  we 
have  taken  to  be  ‘  evidences  of  design  ’  are  after  all  mere 
‘  conditions  of  existence  ?  ' 2 

Popular  theology,  however — even  in  circles  where  the 
discoveries  of  Darwin  are  well-known — has  not  wholly 
abandoned  the  time-honoured  argument.  The  world  in 
all  its  aspects  is  subject  to  rules.  More  and  yet  more 
of  these  rules  are  revealed  to  us  by  every  fresh  pursuit  on 
which  we  enter.  x\nd  though  there  is,  of  course,  such  a' 
thing  as  conforming  to  a  rule  accidentally  and  without 
being  governed  by  it — trees,  for  example,  may  accidentally 
grow  in  a  circle,  or  the  stains  of  damp  on  the  wall  may 
make  a  regular  pattern — no  one  can  seriously  regard  the 
regularity  of  Nature  as  being  of  this  purely  accidental 
sort.  If  we  contrast  casual  *  conformity  to  rules  ’  with 
actual  ‘  government  by  rules  ’,  we  must  regard  the  world 
as  in  some  sense  really  ‘  governed  ’  by  them — for, 
if  not,  how  could  we  use  these  rules  for  such  purposes 
as  astronomical  prediction  ?  We  cannot  reasonably 
predict  a  series  of  events  by  reference  to  a  rule  to  which 
it  only  conforms  by  chance. 

It  is  natural  enough  then  that  the  popular  theologian 


1  Man  and  Superman,  preface  to  new  popular  edition. 

*  The  phrases  occur  in  a  work,  published  anonymously,  by  the 
late  Dr,  Rowland  Williams, 


THE  ‘  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN’  143 


should  proceed  to  argue  that  the  influence  of  rules  in 
Nature  implies  a  Governing  Mind.  How — he  asks— -can 
a  series  of  occurrences  be  subject  to  rules  except  through 
the  agency  of  a  mind,  or  minds,  which  can  frame  the  rules 
and  understand  them  ?  Again,  if  the  world  is  a  Single 
System,  does  not  this  point  to  one  single  ruling  Mind 
rather  than  to  many  ?  And  does  not  the  general  orderli¬ 
ness  of  the  world,  and  its  general  appearance  of  being  a 
rationally  constructed  scheme,  suggest  irresistibly  to  the 
open-minded  observer — even  in  spite  of  disturbing  factors 
such  as  pain  and  sin — that  the  Governing  Mind  is  wise  and 
good  ? 

The  argument  is  always  impressive  :  it  is  nevertheless 
beset  with  difficulties. 

The  contention,  for  example,  that  Nature  being  an 
orderly  whole  needs  a  conscious  Mind  to  construct  and 
preserve  it,  leads  to  embarrassing  consequences.  For  is 
not  the  Mind  of  the  Creator  itself  an  ordered  Whole  also  ? 
By  the  same  reasoning  it  too  requires  an  ordering  Mind 
behind  it,  and  this  in  its  turn  another — and  so  we  could 
never  reach  finality. 

Again  the  Argument  from  Design  is  wrong  in  treating 
‘  accident  ’  and  '  design  ’  as  absolute  alternatives.  To 
maintain  that  ‘  wherever  facts  conform  to  a  general 
rule,  this  is  either  by  accident  or  by  conscious  design  ’ 
is  to  overlook  the  familiar  case  of  Geometry.  The  interior 
angles  of  every  triangle  conform  to  the  general  rule  that 
the  three  taken  together  must  be  equal  to  two  right 
angles.  This  is  certainly  no  accident  :  yet  it  would  never 
occur  to  any  one  who  understood  the  Euclidean  proof  to 
point  to  this  case  as  evidence  of  a  conscious  purpose. 

These  objections — especially  the  last — are  not  such  as 


144  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


can  be  dismissed  lightly.  And  yet,  surely,  there  is  some¬ 
thing  to  be  said  on  the  other  side.  If  we  can  say  nothing 
more,  we  may  justly  say  as  much  as  this — that  the  Argu¬ 
ment  from  Design  has  called  attention  to  certain 
facts  in  the  constitution  of  Nature  which  have  somewhat 
the  same  sort  of  significance  as  it  attributes  to  them. 
These  facts  are  not  unimportant,  even  though  the  common 
theology  has  not  found  for  them  precisely  the  right 
interpretation. 

What  the  argument  from  Design  then  seems  to  require 
is  revision  and  restatement.  As  it  stands,  it  is  a  strange 
mixture  of  truth  and  error  :  and  the  task  of  the  modern 
theologian  is  to  separate  the  error  from  the  truth. 

We  shall  find,  however,  that  to  restate  the  old  argu¬ 
ment  correctly  and  at  the  same  time  clearly,  is  a  work  of 
quite  extraordinary  difficulty.  The  revised  statement 
will  come  in  conflict  at  every  step  with  one  or  other  of 
those  philosophic  tendencies  which  have  been  inherited 
by  our  generation  from  the  Empiricist  and  Conceptualist 
schools  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  In  one  particular 
matter — the  characteristic  unwillingness  of  the  modern 
mind  to  admit  that  there  can  be  absoluteness  and  finality 
in  the  moral  and  aesthetic  judgments  of  mankind — it  will 
be  opposed  by  the  influence  of  writers  so  different  in  other 
respects  as  Nietzsche  and  Mr.  F.  H.  Bradley.  For  these 
reasons  the  next  few  pages — though  no  more  than  a 
sketch  in  outline — cannot  be  quite  easy  reading,1  and  the 
reader  must  be  prepared  to  pardon  some  awkward  quasi- 
technical  phraseology,  which  though  conducing  to  brevity 
cannot  fail  to  be  a  trial  to  his  patience. 


1  The  argument  is  stated  briefly  above:  p.  xvii  (2). 


THE  ‘  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN  *  145 


Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  agreement  of 
Nature  with  rules.  Let  us  take — as  the  starting  point 
for  our  new  venture — the  fact  that  the  world  is  subject 
to  rules  not  merely  in  the  matter  of  physical  uniformity, 
but  in  the  higher  aspects  of  Nature  likewise. 

Take,  first  of  all,  the  case  of  beauty  and  harmony  of 
colour.  Not  only  does  Nature  afford  us  a  lavish  display  of 
colour-schemes  of  extreme  beauty  :  but — what  is  more 
remarkable  still — there  is  a  certain  level  of  beauty  below 
which  Nature  never  falls.  Nothing  in  Nature  ever  violates 
the  principles  of  good  colouring  as  these  are  often  vio¬ 
lated  in  the  oleograph  and  the  coloured  photograph,  and 
sometimes  even  in  the  attire  of  feminine  humanity. 

Is  the  beauty  of  natural  objects  then  accidental — a 
mere  by-product  of  physical  uniformity  ?  Some  of  the 
evolutionary  explanations  of  aesthetic  facts  will  be 
briefly  dealt  with  below.  But  the  truth  is  that  the 
discovery  of  Natural  Selection  has  made  far  less  difference 
to  this  problem  than  might  at  first  sight  be  supposed  ; 
and  the  decision  must  rest  with  simple  observation  and 
common  sense. 

The  beauty  of  Nature  depends  upon  colour-schemes  of  a 
highly  complex  character.  As  every  one  who  has  ever 
tried  to  sketch  from  Nature  knows,  the  laws  of  harmony 
in  colour  are  strict  and  difficult  to  fulfil.  A  few  wrong 
touches  are  enough  to  ruin  the  beauty  of  a  whole  picture. 
Thus  the  beauty  of  Nature — its  avoidance  of  inharmonious 
combinations — is  far  from  being  a  matter  of  course. 
Whenever  we  find  a  large  number  of  separate  facts  agreeing 
strictly  with  a  single  principle, — ‘  This  agreement  ’  we 
say  f  cannot  be  due  to  accident/  And  this  is  exactly  what 
we  find  here.  When  we  see  that  Nature  conforms  itself, 
unconsciously  but  unerringly,  to  the  very  same  principles 

L 


146  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


of  taste,  positive  and  negative,  which  the  artist  is  con¬ 
tinually  striving  to  obey — which  moreover  he  can  never 
succeed  in  obeying  except  by  laborious  selective  effort, 
and  as  a  result  of  long  training  or  exceptional  inspiration — 
the  theory  that  Nature  obeys  these  aesthetic  principles 
by  mere  accident  becomes  untenable.1 

Moreover  the  notion  that  natural  beauty  is  an  accident 
is  contradicted  by  our  practice.  If  any  one  maintained, 
either  that  natural  objects  are  beautiful  by  mere  chance, 
or  that  our  opinion  of  their  beauty  is  a  pious  illusion  based 
on  the  a  'priori  doctrine  that  Nature  is  the  work  of  God, 
the  constant  practice  of  painters  would  by  itself  be  enough 
to  refute  him.  The  painter,  whatever  his  religious  creed, 
takes  Nature  for  his  model.  Desiring  to  grasp  the 
principles  of  beauty  with  deeper  insight,  he  turns  to  those 
forms  and  scenes  where  they  are  consistently  exemplified. 
His  advice  to  his  pupil  to  ‘  study  Nature  ’  is  virtually  a 
prediction — as  confident  in  its  own  field  as  the  predictions 
of  the  astronomer  in  his — that  these  principles  will  be 
found  to  dominate  Nature  in  every  comer. 

But  what  follows  ?  If  it  is  not  by  ‘  accident  ’  that 
Nature  is  beautiful,  then  it  is  in  some  sense  a  ‘  law  '  that 
what  is  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  beauty 
shall  *  as  such  ’  occur. 

Whenever  we  say  ‘  This  is  no  accident '  we  are  affirming 

1  It  is  not  merely  that  in  Nature  there  are  f  many  pretty 
scenes  \  Each  of  these  involves  the  agreement  of  a  large  number 
of  coloured  points  with  an  intricate  aesthetic  principle  in  our 
minds.  This  principle  is  not  a  mere  product  or  copy  of  Nature. 
It  has  a  certain  independence.  For  example  we  can  judge  the 
colour-schemes  of  Nature  as  more  or  less  perfect :  sometimes  we 
can  even  supply  their  defects,  although  not  even  on  the  most 
‘  unpaintable  ’  day  does  Nature  ever  fall  below  a  certain  level. 


THE  ‘ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN  ’  147 


the  truth  of  some  explanatory  theory :  1  or  (as  we  should 
more  naturally  express  it  in  the  case  of  any  recurrent 
phenomenon)  we  are  affirming  the  truth  of  a  ‘  law  \  2 
We  find  again  and  again  in  Nature  harmonious  combina¬ 
tions  of  colours.  Does  harmonious  combination  occur 
‘  as  such  ’  ?  Are  the  various  colours  selected  by  Nature 
‘  because  ’  they  are  mutually  harmonious,  or  not  ?  If 
the  harmoniousness  of  the  colours  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  their  occurrence,  then  their  harmony  is  a 
sheer  accident — just  as  much  as  it  would  be  a  sheer  acci¬ 
dent  if  a  melodious  air  were  played  by  an  animal  walking 
on  the  keyboard.3  But  this  is  the  sort  of  elaborate  accident 

1  A  few  examples  will  make  this  plain.  If  I  say  1  It  is  no 
accident  that  so  many  of  your  guests  are  Germans  5  I  am  sug¬ 
gesting  that  it  is  in  some  sense  ‘  because  ’  they  are  Germans  that 
they  have  been  invited — that  in  some  sense  Germans  have  been 
invited  '  as  such'.  If  I  say  ‘  It  cannot  be  an  accident  that  we 
always  meet  here  on  a  Wednesday  1  I  am  suggesting  some  kind 
of  causal  connexion  between  our  encounter  and  the  day  of  the 
week  on  which  it  occurs.  We  must  distinguish  the  ‘  accidental  ’ 
(to  crvjj.l3e/3r]K6s)  from  the  ‘  contingent  ’  (ro  evSe^o/j.^vov  aAAco? 
exav) .  To  say  *  This  is  no  accident  ’  goes  beyond  the  mere 
general  and  formal  assertion  *  This  is  not  an  event  without  a 
cause’.  The  latter  assertion  is  too  obvious  to  be  worth  making 
in  practical  life  ;  the  former  always  implies  a  particular  explan¬ 
atory  theory,  even  though — as  in  the  instances  given  above — ■ 
it  may  be  a  very  vague  one.  It  would  be  assumed  that  you 
invite  no  guest  without  some  reason  :  the  question  would  be 
whether  the  explanation  of  the  presence  of  some  is  to  be  found 
in  their  nationality. 

2  For  this  word  see  below. 

2  It  is  alleged  that  the  youthful  Hildebrand,  before  he  could 
read,  happened  to  form  the  letters  of  a  singularly  appropriate 
verse  from  the  Psalms  by  casually  putting  together  pieces  of 
wood — literas  nesciens,  casu  formavit,  ex  ligni  segmentis,  hoc 
dictum  Davidis  ‘  Dominabitur  a  mari  usque  ad  mare.’  Cave’s 
Hist.  Lit.  p.  15 1.  We  must  choose  here  between  fiction  and 
miracle  :  such  an  elaborate  accident  is  quite  beyond  belief. 


148  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


which  we  cannot  really  believe  in.  If  on  the  other  hand 
it  is  in  any  sense  ‘  because  ’  of  their  harmoniousness  that 
the  colours  in  Nature  occur,  then  it  is  in  some  sense  a  law 
that  the  harmonious  colour  occurs  ‘  as  such',  and  Nature 
must  be  regarded  as  being  in  some  sense  '  governed  ’  by 
aesthetic  principles,  though  not  necessarily  through  the 
agency  of  a  Conscious  Mind.1 

This  conclusion,  if  admitted  to  be  correct,  cannot 
be  denied  to  be  important.  Natural  Science  for  the 
most  part  eschews  ‘  teleology  ’.  2  It  refuses  to  explain 
facts  by  the  '  purposes  ’  or  ‘  ends  ’  which  they  might 
serve.  And  this  refusal  in  its  own  place  is  right :  since 
teleology  may  often  be  the  enemy  of  research.3 

Yet  we  cannot  banish  teleological  conceptions  entirely. 
Our  reason  must  recognize  the  beauty  of  Nature,  not 
necessarily  as  the  fulfilment  of  ‘  purpose  \  but  certainly 
as  the  realization  of  an  ‘  end  \  To  right  reason  beauty 
is  an  ‘  end  in  itself  ’ — a  thing  of  value  for  its  own  sake. 
If  then  it  is  a  law  of  Nature  that  Nature  is  beautiful,  this 
law  may  certainly  be  described  as  teleological. 

1  Cf.  the  remark  about  Geometry  above.  This  argument 

will  naturally  be  resisted  by  those  thinkers  to  whom  the  exclusion 
of  all  teleology  seems  necessary  to  the  progress  of  science.  Yet 
can  it  be  resisted  except  by  evasion  ?  ‘  Is  it  in  any  sense  because 

of  their  mutual  harmony  that  the  harmonious  colours  occur  ?  * 
If  we  say  *  In  no  sense  because  of  this  ’  then  the  harmonies  of 
Nature  are  accidental.  Thus,  though  we  are  not  obliged  to 
choose  between  accident  and  design,  we  are  obliged  to  choose 
between  accident  and  teleology.  See  next  note. 

2  It  is  not  scientific  e.g.  to  explain  the  berries  of  autumn 
by  the  needs  of  the  birds  next  winter.  Teleology  consists  in 
accounting  for  facts  by  the  ends  which  they  serve. 

3  Newton,  for  example,  would  never  have  discovered  gravita¬ 
tion  if  he  had  been  satisfied  to  explain  the  fall  of  apples  by  the 
beneficent  intention  of  the  Creator  that  they  should  be  eaten 
by  animals  on  the  ground. 


THE  ARGUMENT  '  FROM  DESIGN  *  149 


Nor  are  these  conclusions  affected  by  any  evolutionary 
hypothesis.  The  evolutionary  explanation  of  aesthetic 
facts  takes  two  main  forms  :  the  one  relying  chiefly  on 
Hereditary  Habituation,  the  other  on  Natural  Selection. 
Our  pleasure  in  the  green  of  the  landscape,  for  example,  is 
explained  as  due  to  the  fact  that  green  trees  have  been 
familiar  to  our  race  from  remote  ages.  What  the  eye  is 
accustomed  to  perceive  it  perceives  easily :  what  it 
perceives  easily,  it  perceives  pleasantly  :  and  that  which 
we  perceive  with  pleasure  is  called  beautiful. 

But  this  type  of  explanation  breaks  down  if  we  apply 
it  generally.  It  does  not  explain  our  pleasure  in  melod¬ 
ies  which  are  original  or  colour-schemes  which  are  novel : 
and  for  some  of  the  most  familiar  aesthetic  laws — such  as 
the  prohibition  of  consecutive  fifths  in  music — it  is  quite 
unable  to  account.  The  hypothesis  might  conceivably 
explain  our  pleasure  in  red,  or  in  green,  or  in  the  transition 
from  one  familiar  colour  to  another  which  is  often  found 
beside  it.  But  just  as  the  charm  of  a  melody  is  not  the 
mere  cumulative  effect  of  a  number  of  melodic  intervals — 
if  it  were  we  might  take  the  intervals  in  reverse  order1 — 
so  neither  is  the  charm  of  a  scheme  of  colour  identical 
with  the  cumulative  effect  of  a  number  of  pleasant  transi- 

1  Mr.  Grant  Allen’s  theories  on  this  subject  might  be  put 
to  a  simple  test.  The  first  phrase  of  the  familiar  Toreador  Song 
in  Carmen,  contains  the  following  ‘  transitions  ’  DE,  ED,  DB, 
BA,  AB,  BC,  CB.  But  so  also  does  the  following  phrase, 


■-g? - j 


besides  two  quite  pleasant  intervals  BD,  DB  in  addition.  On 
Mr.  Grant  Allen’s  theory  it  ought  to  be  the  more  pleasing  melody. 


150  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


tions.  If  taste  were  a  mere  matter  of  physical  and 
sensual  habituation,  the  rational  conception  of  a  single 
harmonious  scheme  of  colour  would  never  have  arisen. 

The  attempt  to  account  for  our  aesthetic  tastes  by 
Natural  Selection  is  equally  unsuccessful.  What  good 
does  a  delicate  enjoyment  of  the  colour-schemes  of  Nature 
do  to  us  in  the  struggle  for  existence  ?  Actual  colour¬ 
blindness  may  diminish  an  animal’s  chance  of  survival. 
But  no  one  perishes — brute  or  man — from  a  lack  of  the 
higher  qualities  of  aesthetic  taste.  That  a  taste  for  the 
particular  colour-schemes  which  Nature  presents  is  not  a 
necessary  condition  of  survival  is  plain  from  the  fact  that 
in  the  majority  of  cases  this  delicacy  of  taste — though 
generally  present  as  a  capacity — remains  undeveloped 
even  in  civilized  mankind. 

Again,  both  these  theories  imply  that  the  sense  of 
beauty  is  of  the  nature  of  an  illusion — that  we  give  the 
name  beauty  to  what  happens  to  please  us  ;  that  between 
beauty  and  its  opposite  there  is  no  real  or  '  objective  * 
difference.  But  this  is  a  view  which  no  one  admits  with 
regard  to  the  kinds  of  beauty  he  understands,  and  in 
extreme  cases  it  is  admitted  by  nobody  at  all.  When  the 
process  of  evolution  has  produced — as  in  many  individuals 
it  has — a  type  of  bad  taste  which  is  really  flagrant,  it  then 
becomes  quite  evident  that  by  ‘  good  taste  ’  we  do  not 
mean  merely  that  particular  kind  of  taste  which  is  able 
to  survive  in  the  evolutionary  struggle.  Art-critics,  like 
other  people,  contradict  one  another,  and  make  mistakes. 
Yet  here  as  elsewhere  there  are  some  firmly  established 
results  :  and  one  of  the  surest  of  these — for  any  one  who 
has  any  eye  for  beauty — is  the  delicacy  and  harmonious¬ 
ness  of  the  colour-schemes  of  Nature.  The  merit  of  these 
does  not  consist  solely  in  the  fact  that  they  happen  to 


THE  '  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN  ’  151 

suit  our  eyes.  On  the  other  hand  we  discover  that  the 
systematic  training  of  the  sense  of  colour  adds  not  merely 
to  our  enjoyment  but  to  our  knowledge.1  The  beauty, 

1  The  attempts  to  explain  aesthetic  facts  by  evolutionary 
theories  are  interesting  enough  to  deserve  detailed  treatment. 
The  following  headings  may  suggest  the  general  lines  which  this 
treatment  might  follow  : — 

A .  Protective  colouring  in  animals.  Colour  in  flowers  ren¬ 
dering  them  conspicuous  to  fertilizing  insects.  Is  it  a  mere 
accident  that  the  colours  which  possess  these  protective  and  fer¬ 
tilizing  properties  are  at  the  same  time  such  as  to  play  their 
part  in  the  elaborate  colour-schemes  of  Nature  ?  Natural 
selection  explains  the  occurrence  of  each  particular  colour  :  but 
does  not  under  the  present  head  explain  why  only  those  colours 
occur  which  satisfy  certain  strict  aesthetic  requirements. 

B.  Sexual  selection.  The  taste  of  the  female  animal  for 
bright  colours  explains  the  brightness  of  colouring  in  the  male, 
but  not  the  delicacy  of  the  colouring  which  is  to  us  the  most 
conspicuous  element. 

Neither  A  nor  B  afford  any  explanation  of  the  delicate  colour- 
schemes  outside  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom,  e.g.  the 
beauty  of  rock,  water,  or  the  sky  at  sunset. 

C.  The  theory  mentioned  in  the  text — which  seeks  to  explain 
not  the  occurrence  of  the  colours  directly  but  our  liking  for  the 
colours  which  occur — is  the  only  theory  capable  of  wide  applica¬ 
tion  to  the  facts. 

This  theory  is  presented  in  three  forms  - 

I.  Hereditary  Habituation. — The  theory  that  what  we  like 
is  that  which  has  been  familiar  to  our  progenitors. 

II.  Natural  Selection  direct,— The  theory  that  our  tastes 
have  been  directly  valuable  to  the  race  in  the  struggle  for 
existence. 

III.  Natural  Selection  indirect. — The  theory  that — though  of 
no  direct  value  in  the  struggle — they  are  associated  with 
other  qualities  which  possess  this  value. 

Assume  that  qualities  (a),  (b),  (c),  (d)  tend  to  the  survival 
of  the  species  which  possesses  them  :  and  that  with  these  are 
associated  respectively  (w),  (x),  (y),  (z),  these  latter  standing 
for  ‘  aesthetic  tastes  \  Let  (w)  stand  for  *  the  latent  capacity 
to  like  the  Toreador  Song  when  heard  ’.  (This  tendency — if 


152  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

we  find,  was  there  all  the  time :  we  have  now  learned  to 
perceive  it. 

The  case  of  Beauty,  however,  is  only  one  example 
among  many.  Beauty  is  far  from  being  the  only  case 
where  Nature  is  regulated  by  laws  in  its  higher — that 
is  in  its  ‘  teleological J — aspects.  For  example,  it  is  a  law 
of  Nature  that  the  general  tendencies  of  human  thought 
are  not  merely  psychologically  uniform  but,  on  the 
whole,  logically  correct.  Our  belief  in  this  law  is  our  sole 
justification  for  deliberate  thinking.  Yet  we  do  as  a 
fact  trust  our  thought  even  where  its  correctness  has  no 
practical  bearing,  and  cannot  be  accounted  for  by  Natural 

tastes  are  to  be  explained  by  evolution — must  have  been  matur¬ 
ing  simultaneously  all  over  Europe  in  the  ages  preceding  the 
production  of  Carmen).  Assume  (w),  to  be  associated  with  (a). 
(Cf.  the  association  of  ‘  deafness  ’  with  ‘  blue  eyes  ’  in  white 
cats).  If  (a)  is  useful  to  the  species  it  explains  the  universality 
of  (w).  (x)  (‘  taste  for  colour  scheme  of  to-day’s  sunset  ’)  might 

be  preserved  by  similar  association  with  (b). 

Notice,  however,  that  what  this  theory  does  not  explain  is 
(i)  the  tendency  to  correctness  in  taste,  a  tendency  presupposed 
in  all  artistic  training  (art-criticism  would  therefore  be  reduced 
by  this  theory  to,  or  even  beneath,  the  level  of  tea-tasting),  (2) 
the  agreement  of  our  tastes  with  what  is  actually  present  in 
Nature.  Natural  Selection  does  not  explain  wThy  tastes  (x), 
(y)  and  (z)  (tastes  which  are  supposed  to  be  preserved  by  their 
association  with  (b),  (c)  and  (d),)  should  happen  to  find  in  Nature 
the  objects  wdiich  gratify  them.  Unless  it  is  assumed  (returning 
to  theory  No.  II)  that  the  lack  of  this  aesthetic  gratification 
would  kill  off  the  species,  the  agreement  of  our  tastes  with  Nature 
— which  quite  apart  from  any  assumption  as  to  the  correctness 
of  our  taste  is  an  undoubted  fact — is  left  unexplained. 

The  whole  subject  is  of  intrinsic  interest.  Regarded  however, 
as  a  reply  to  the  Argument  from  Design,  the  evolutionary  explan¬ 
ation  of  beauty  has  flourished  merely  by  its  vagueness.  The 
theory  if  pinned  down  to  one  definite  form  will  be  seen  to  be 
inadequate. 


THE  '  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN’  153 


Selection.  Again,  in  spite  of  all  varieties  of  moral  stand¬ 
ard,  there  is,  after  all,  a  solid  background  of  agreement. 
If  it  were  not  so,  we  could  have  no  commercial  or  political 
dealings  with  the  lower  races.  It  is,  in  other  words,  a 
*  law  ’  that  the  Moral  Ideal,  when  its  demands  are  pre¬ 
sented  even  to  the  lowest  specimens  of  the  human  race, 
evokes  some  measure  of  response.  The  laws  of  Nature, 
then,  are  far  from  being  exclusively  physical.1 


Here  therefore  we  may  ask  a  really  comprehensive 
question.  It  is  because  of  the  beauty  of  physical  objects, 
and  because  of  human  intelligence  and  human  morality, 
and  for  other  similar  reasons,  that  we  speak  of  the  world 
as  a  ‘  rational  whole  ’.  We  call  it  a  rational  whole  because 
it  realizes  rational  ends.  Is  this  rationality  then  an 
accident  ?  Is  it  an  accident  that  in  all  these  many 


1  In  this  connexion  it  is  quite  worth  while  to  reflect  on  some 
of  the  more  ‘  human  ’  aspects  of  the  behaviour  of  the  lower 
animals.  The  following  case  of  mimicry  was  recently  observed 
in  North  Oxfordshire.  A  Great  Green  Woodpecker  had  flown 
over  the  high  road,  describing  ascending  and  descending  curves 
in  its  well  known  manner,  marking  its  rhythmical  movements 
with  regular  cries.  A  wren,  sitting  on  the  hedge  at  the  road¬ 
side,  immediately  imitated  the  action  and  cries  of  the  woodpecker, 
without  leaving  its  perch.  The  three  or  four  forward  plunges, 
which  had  carried  the  larger  bird  over  a  couple  of  fields,  were 
copied  by  the  wren  in  an  upward  and  downward  movement 
of  its  own  body.  The  imitation  was  quite  masterly  of  its  kind, 
recalling  nothing  so  much  as  the  boast  of  Coquelin  that  he  could 
act  the  leading  part  in  the  Polish  Jew,  standing  on  a  four-foot 
table.  Again,  the  cuckoo  has  been  heard  to  sing  a  major  second, 
a  minor  third,  a  major  third,  a  perfect  fourth,  a  perfect  fifth, 
the  minor  and  the  major  sixth  :  i.e.  every  diatonic  interval 
between  the  major  second  and  the  major  sixth  with  the  one  excep¬ 
tion  of  the  tritone. 


154  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


respects  Nature  fulfils  such  ends  as  our  reason  approves — 
that  it  agrees  at  so  many  points  with  the  ideal  which 
reason  sets  up  ? 

The  world,  no  doubt,  may  be  called '  rational  *  in  two 
distinct  senses  :  either  simply  because  it  is  subject  to 
general  laws — f  in  this  sense  ’  says  Dr.  Rashdall 1  '  the 
Universe  might  be  rational  if  it  were  a  sort  of  infernal 
machine  * — or,  secondly,  in  the  more  specific  sense  that 
it  is  such  as  to  merit  rational  approval.  ‘  It  has  been  part 
of  the  leger  de  main  of  a  certain  school  ’  Dr.  Rashdall 
continues  '  to  prove  that  the  Universe  is  rational  in  the 
first  sense,  and  then  to  assume  that  it  must  be  rational  in 
the  second/ 

We  are  concerned  here  with  the  latter  sense  alone. 
We  are  confining  ourselves  to  such  evidences  of  ‘  ration¬ 
ality  ’  as  may  be  found  in  those  aspects  of  the  world  in 
which  it  is  the  fit  object  of  the  painter’s  contemplation 
and  the  poet’s  praise  :  in  which,  again,  it  is  the  fit  domicile 
of  moral  education  and  co-operative  moral  enterprise  : 
in  which  therefore  it  is  realizing  rational  ‘  ends  ’.  Is  the 
world’s  appearance  of  rationality — taken  in  this  specific 
sense — something  superficial,  external,  accidental  ? 

We  cannot  readily  think  so.  The  great  historian, 
it  has  been  said,  is  commonly  a  Theist.  No  doubt  there 
are  instances  to  the  contrary.  Yet,  at  least,  it  is  natural 
on  the  whole  that  the  man  whose  interest  in  the  world  is 
less  abstract  than  that  of  the  mere  physicist,  should 
perceive  irresistibly  that  the  cases  where  ends  approved 
by  reason  are  realized  in  Nature  are  too  numerous  to  be 
due  to  chance. 

Again  it  is  solely  on  the  strength  of  our  belief  in  the 


1  The  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  vol.  ii.  p.  219,  note. 


THE  ‘  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN’  155 


necessary  conformity  of  the  world  to  a  rational  standard 
that  we  reject  the  superstitions  of  Paganism.  We  refuse 
to  believe  in  Charon  and  his  ferry,  not  from  mere  lack  of 
evidence — this  would  only  justify  us  in  suspending 
judgment — but  simply  because  we  perceive  that  in  a 
rationally  ordered  world  no  such  incidents  can  find  place. 
If  we  consider  the  grounds  on  which  we  reject  these  inci¬ 
dents  so  decisively,  we  shall  readily  find  that  they  are 
rejected  because  they  are  '  irrational  ’  in  the  second  of 
the  two  senses  which  Dr.  Rashdall  has  distinguished. 
How  could  we  show — who  ever  tries  to  show  ? — that  the 
incidents  in  the  Pagan  myths  might  not  be  brought 
under  general  laws  just  as  easily  as  many  biographical 
incidents  which  we  accept  ?  But  they  are  irrational 
in  the  sense  that  they  can  form  no  part  of  such  a  world 
as  right  reason  could  approve.  In  this  sense,  then,  we 
hold  it  to  be  a  law  that  Nature  wholly  rejects  the  irra¬ 
tional  and  conforms  itself  to  the  demands  of  reason. 

What  bearing  has  all  this  upon  religious  faith  ?  Three 
brief  remarks  may  help  to  an  answer  to  this  question. 

We  have  seen,  first,  that  by  speaking  thus  of  a  rational 
'  standard  ’,  we  are  using  the  word  ‘  standard  ’  in  the 
same  general  sense  in  which  it  is  used  in  aesthetics  and 
ethics.  Our  perception  of  the  world’s  ‘  rationality  ’  is  a 
*  judgment  of  value  ’. 

Secondly  :  such  a  judgment  implies  a  confidence  in  the 
correctness  of  the  standard  by  which  we  judge.  We 
cannot  hold  that  a  standard  by  which  we  ourselves  are 
at  this  moment  judging  is  *  merely  subjective  ’.  To  hold 
that  something  is  ‘  good  ’,  is  to  hold  that  it  is  ‘  really 
good  ’.  To  hold  that  the  world  is  '  rational  ’  is  to  hold  that 
it  conforms  to  *  the  standard  set  up  by  right  reason 


156  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

The  third  point  is  more  difficult,  since  it  touches  the 
problem  of  Evil.  The  conclusion  we  have  already 
arrived  at  may  be  summed  up  thus  : — ‘  The  observed 
agreements  between  the  actual  world  and  the  Ideal 
which  reason  sets  up  are  too  numerous  to  be  accidental : 
therefore  it  is  in  some  sense  a  law  that  the  demands  of 
this  ideal  must  as  such  be  realized/  But  this  is  a  law 
which,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  can  accept  no  qualifica¬ 
tion  or  limitation  1  without  becoming  entirely  unmeaning. 
Nothing  indeed  could  be  more  flagrantly  irrational  than 
a  system  of  laws  which  prescribed  elaborate  agreement 
with  the  rational  standard  at  some  points  and  violation 
of  it  at  others.  If  we  admitted  for  a  moment  that  such  is 
the  system  of  law  to  which  the  world  is  really  subject, 
all  the  practical  confidence  which  we  base  upon  '  the 
rationality  of  the  Universe  '  would  be  at  an  end.  Such 
a  Universe,  of  course,  is  believed  in  by  nobody.  Those 
who  deny  the  optimistic  conception  of  the  world  which 
belongs  to  Christianity,  deny  at  the  same  time  that 
there  is  any  law  of  Nature  which  possesses  a  teleological 
character.  They  have  therefore  to  treat  beauty  and 
morality  and  intelligence  as  evolutionary  accidents. 
Thus  the  controversy  between  Christian  Optimism 
and  the  doctrines  which  oppose  it  turns  mainly  on  the 
questions  discussed  in  the  earlier  portion  of  this  chapter. 
The  man  who  admits  teleological  laws  at  all,  cannot 
without  absurdity  draw  back  from  a  thorough-going 
optimism. 

1  In  some  cases  the  extension  of  an  observed  rule  may  remain 
doubtful.  A  stranger  arriving  in  London  might  soon  perceive 
that  it  is  a  *  law  ’  that  letter-boxes  are  painted  red  :  but  he 
might  be  ignorant  whether  this  law  held  good  of  all  Europe  or 
only  of  the  City  of  Westminster. 


THE  'ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN  *  157 

Two  questions,  however,  will  inevitably  be  asked. 
If  the  belief  in  the  rationality  of  the  Universe  and  the 
acceptance  of  a  thorough-going  Optimism  are  identical 
beliefs,  how  comes  it  that  any  single  thinker  fails  to 
be  an  Optimist  ?  The  best  reply  to  this  question  is  to 
ask  another  in  return.  We  all  are  ready  to  believe  in  a 
world  which  contradicts  the  ideals  of  other  people : 
but  does  any  one  seriously  believe  in  a  world  which  con¬ 
tradicts  his  own  ?  The  Physicist’s  belief  in  a  reign  of 
law  and  order  beyond  the  narrow  sphere  of  our  experience  is 
an  act  of  faith  no  less  than  is  the  optimism  of  religion  : 
and,  in  truth,  the  two  acts  of  faith  are  in  their  essence 
one  and  the  same.  In  a  word,  no  one  doubts  that  the 
Universe  conforms  to  the  ideal  of  reason :  the  only 
dispute  is  as  to  what  that  ideal  contains.  Thus,  here  as 
elsewhere,  the  final  question  between  religious  faith  and 
unbelief  turns  upon  a  judgment  of  value. 

But  what  of  the  facts  of  evil  ?  Christianity  not  only 
admits  these  facts  but  insists  upon  them.  To  speak 
lightly  of  evil  as  '  imperfect  good  ’  is  quite  contrary  to  the 
Christian  spirit.  Yet  the  ultimate  judgment  of  Christian 
piety  upon  the  world  as  a  whole,  is  expressed  in  the 
words  of  the  dying  Chrysostom — '  Glory  be  to  God  for  all 
things  The  recognition  that  many  things  are,  when 
regarded  in  isolation,  utterly  evil,  has  not  seemed  incon¬ 
sistent  with  the  faith  that  the  world,  regarded  in  its 
totality,  is  good.1  It  is  sufficient  to  point  out  here  that 
unless  the  wrorld,  regarded  as  a  whole,  is  in  entire  accord¬ 
ance  with  the  ideal  which  reason  sets  up,  then  it  is  a 
pure  accident  that  it  agrees  with  it  at  any  single  point. 
This  follows  from  what  the  word  ‘  accident  ’  means. 


1  Descartes,  Meditation  Quatrieme, 


158  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Either,  then,  all  evil  is  in  the  end  good  :  or  all  good 
comes  by  chance  only.  To  the  keen  eye  of  popular  re¬ 
ligion  the  truth  of  this  antithesis  has  always  been  clear ; 
and  hence  popular  Christianity  has  unfailingly  drawn 
the  conclusion  that  even  the  worst  of  evils  are  aU  '  for  the 
best  \ 


These  suggestions  for  a  revised  statement  of  the 
familiar  Argument  from  Design  must  now  be  left  to  the 
thought  and  criticism  of  the  reader.  A  few  words, 
however,  may  be  added  as  to  the  word  ‘  law  *  and  its 
significance. 

When  we  call  it  a  ‘  law  ’  that  ‘  the  interior  angles  of 
every  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles  ’  we  mean 
that  this  is  a  ‘  necessary  truth  *  :  and  we  can  demonstrate 
that  this  truth  is  necessary  because  it  follows  from  the  very 
definition  of  what  a  triangle  is — from  the  very  meaning  of 
the  term. 

Are  the  laws  of  Nature,  then,  laws  in  the  same  sense  ? 
Could  they  conceivably  be  deduced — in  the  same  sort  of 
way — from  the  meanings  of  ideas  ?  The  hope  that — if 
only  we  could  attain  sufficient  knowledge  for  the  task — 
the  world  and  all  its  contents  might  be  shown  to  follow 
from  general  conceptions,  as  truly  as  geometrical  facts 
follow  from  the  general  notion  of  a  f  line  ’  an  f  angle  ’  and 
a  ‘triangle’,  was  not  obscurely  hinted  at  by  Plato.1 

1  Republic,  511b,  509.  With  517c  cf.  516c  1.  The  Idea  of 
the  Good,  which  is  perceived  by  pure  thought  only,  is  regarded 
as  the  ground  not  only  of  the  truth  of  the  intelligible  ideas,  but 
of  the  existence  of  the  visible  things.  The  relation  of  this  doc¬ 
trine  to  the  merely  phenomenal  nature  of  the  latter  is  perhaps 
never  cleared  up. 


THE  ‘  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN’  159 

But  this  hope  has  met  with  singularly  little  sympathy. 
Philosophers  have  been  eager  to  defend  themselves 
from  the  charge  that  they  sought  to  f  fashion  the  world 
out  of  categories  ’  ;  and  great  pains  have  been  taken  to 
prove,  of  Hegel  in  particular,  that  he  made  no  attempt 
to  deduce  the  world  as  it  stands  from  the  ultimate 
categories  of  thought. 

The  repudiation  of  this  Platonic  hope  is  in  some  ways 
intelligible  enough.  That  in  our  present  state  of  know¬ 
ledge  we  cannot  deduce  the  facts  of  the  world’s  history 
from  ideas — that  therefore  there  is  much  which  we  cannot 
as  yet  see  '  under  the  form  of  necessity  ’  but  must  be 
contented  to  learn  from  experience — is  an  admission  of 
great  practical  importance.  Yet  it  is  only  one  side  of 
the  truth.  It  does  not  follow  that,  because  we  cannot 
perform  it  yet,  this  deduction  from  ideas  is  ultimately 
inconceivable.  Indeed — if  we  think  of  it — the  ultimate 
deducibility  of  all  facts  from  ideas  is  involved  in  the  very 
notion  of  scientific  explanation.  Explanations  are 
couched  in  words  ;  and  words  are  the  symbols  of  ideas  : 
it  is  by  means  of  ideas  therefore  that  we  explain.  But 
explanation  through  ideas  implies  sequence  from  them. 
If  the  fact  does  not  really  follow  from  the  ideas  ;  how 
can  it  be  explained  by  means  of  them  ?  It  is  only  in 
rare  cases — as  for  example  in  Geometry — that  all  the 
links  in  the  chain  of  sequence  can  be  shown.  But  the 
consecutiveness  of  the  chain  does  not  depend  upon  our 
perception  of  it.  Moreover — since  the  strength  of  a 
chain  is  the  strength  of  the  weakest  part  of  it — the  entire 
value  of  the  few  links  which  are  known  depends  upon 
the  absolute  consecutiveness  of  the  whole.  If  only 
those  few  links  were  valid  which  are  known  to  man,  the 
whole  explanation  would  be  worthless. 


160  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


There  is  no  room  to  go  more  fully  into  this  important 
matter  here.  Enough  perhaps  has  been  said  to  set 
the  reader  upon  a  train  of  reflection  which  will  lead  him 
to  the  conclusion  that  unless  a  fact  is  ultimately  deducible 
from  ideas  it  is  not  ultimately  explicable  :  and  further 
that  if  it  is  not  capable  of  ultimate  explanation,  it  is  not 
capable  of  explanation  at  all. 

This  discussion  bears  directly  upon  the  doctrine  of 
God.  An  infidel  lecturer  was  asked  the  question : 
‘  Who  made  the  World  ?  ’  ‘If  you  say  that  God  made 
it/  he  replied,  ‘  I  shall  ask,  Who  made  God  ?  \ 

For  the  popular  Theist  the  infiders  retort  is  unanswer¬ 
able.  Popular  Theism,  in  fact,  is  as  lacking  in  finality 
as  popular  Materialism  itself.  While  the  latter  explains 
the  world  by  atoms  but  does  not  explain  why  the  atoms 
should  exist,  the  former  explains  the  world  as  the  work  of 
God  but  leaves  the  existence  of  God  unexplained  and 
unexplainable. 

The  only  path  out  of  this  quagmire  of  non-finality 
is  the  path  indicated  by  Plato.  This  path  the  common 
understanding  1  never  finds  :  and  therefore,  though  its 
religion  is  habitually  sound,  its  theology  is  always  faulty. 
To  the  common  understanding  ‘  ideas  ’  are  merely 
‘  something  in  our  heads’.  But  when  men  come  to  see — 
what  is  plainest  in  the  case  of  mathematics — that  there 
are  truths  which  are  prior  to  all  knowledge  and  independ¬ 
ent  of  it,  and  that  these  truths  hold  good  simply  because 

1  The  phrase  is  Hegel’s.  It  is  not  a  quite  satisfactory  expres¬ 
sion  since  it  suggests  a  certain  superciliousness  on  the  part  of 
the  philosopher.  Yet  if  the  philosopher  has  learnt  anything 
whatever,  this  must  give  him  advantage  at  some  points  over 
those  who  have  not  this  knowledge. 


THE  '  ARGUMENT  FROM  DESIGN  '  161 


they  follow  from  the  meaning  of  ideas,  then  we  are  on 
the  road  to  discovering  the  direction  in  which  alone  finality 
is  to  be  looked  for. 

Is  it  possible  to  combine  this  conception  of  the  world 
as  resting  on  '  ideas  '  as  its  ultimate  basis,  with  the  Chris¬ 
tian  belief  in  a  conscious  God  ?  On  this  question  some¬ 
thing  more  will  be  said  later.  It  is  enough  to  remark 
here  that  the  notion  of  God  as  bearing  no  merely  external 
or  accidental  relation  to  the  world — but  rather  as  being 
the  ultimate  necessity  by  which  the  Universe  has  existence, 
the  ultimate  law  by  which  all  things  subsist,  expressing 
itself  in  the  form  of  Conscious  Will — is  (as  we  shall  see 
below)  far  more  in  accord  with  the  aspirations  of  the 
religious  soul  than  are  the  usual  definitions  of  popular 
theology.  Here  as  elsewhere,  we  may  contrast  the  shallow¬ 
ness  of  popular  theology  with  the  profundity  and  correct¬ 
ness  of  popular  religion. 


M 


CHAPTER  XVI 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 

BEFORE  we  accept  an  argument  which  leads  to  a 
universal  Optimism,  we  ought  to  subject  it  at 
every  point  to  the  severest  criticism.  The  philosophical 
and  sceptical  temperaments — as  Mr.  Bradley  has  re¬ 
minded  us — are  seldom  found  together.  Yet  if  ever 
scepticism  is  in  its  right  place,  it  is  when  it  is  applied 
to  the  arguments  which  are  the  foundation  of  religious 
belief.  When  so  much  depends  upon  the  rope,  every 
strand  should  be  examined  with  jealous  care. 

But  the  very  same  spirit  of  intellectual  sincerity 
which  refuses  to  accept  a  principle  without  sufficient 
ground,  will  also  draw  conclusions  from  it  fearlessly 
when  once  it  is  firmly  established.  A  theology  which 
accepts  Optimism  must  have  the  courage  to  develop  it. 
It  must  not  be  afraid  to  state,  for  example,  a  definite 
theory  of  Evil,  of  Special  Providence,  of  a  Future  life. 

With  regard  to  the  most  interesting  of  these  questions, 
we  have  a  striking  example  of  fearlessness  in  the  theology 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  in  dealing  with 
the  Future  Life  showrs  himself  conspicuously  free  from 
the  modem  fear  of  detail.  He  inquires  whether  all  the 

162 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


163 


limbs  of  the  human  body  will  rise  again,1  whether  the  hair 
and  nails  will  rise  again,2  whether  our  blood  will  rise 
again,3  whether  everything  in  the  body  pertaining  to 
the  verity  of  human  nature,  will  rise  again  in  the  same 
body,4  whether  all  men  will  rise  as  persons  in  the  prime 
of  life  (in  aetatejuvenili), 5  whether  in  the  resurrection  there 
will  remain  difference  of  sex,6 — and  this  question  he 
answers  in  the  affirmative.  He  discusses  the  opinion  that 
‘  in  the  Blessed  after  the  resurrection  all  powers  of  the 
soul  (omnes  potentiae  animae)  and  all  members  of  the  body 
are  in  the  active  exercise  of  their  characteristic  functions 
(in  suis  actibus)  ’  :  that  perfect  pleasure  includes  all 
forms  even  of  sensuous  delectation.7  He  inquires 
whether  the  Blessed  will  possess  all  their  five  senses  not 
merely  potentially  but  actively,8  and  also  whether  we  are 
to  conceive  the  saints  in  glory  as  moving  from  place  to 
place.9  Motion,  he  declares,  takes  away  nothing  from 
the  stability  of  a  mind  stayed  on  God.  He  holds  there¬ 
fore  that  it  is  probable  that  the  saints  in  glory  will  move 
about  at  their  pleasure,  that  their  sight  may  be  refreshed 
( reficiatur )  by  the  beauty  of  diverse  created  things  in 
which  the  wisdom  of  God  will  abundantly  shine  forth.10 

Detailed  discussion  of  this  kind  is  uncongenial,  as  we 
know,  to  modern  taste  ;  and  modern  religion  is  of  course 
quite  free,  if  it  wishes  it,  to  leave  these  questions  aside 
(as  the  Ritschlian  teaching  has  disposed  us  to  do)  without 

1  Summa  Theol.  Sup  pi.  3  ae  partis.  Ixxx.  vel  lxxxii.,  art.  I. 

2  Do.  art.  II.  3  Do.  art.  III. 

4  Do.  art.  IV.  5  lxxxi.  vel  lxxxiii.,  art.  I. 

6  Do.  art.  III.  7  Do.  art.  IV. 

8  lxxxii.  vel  lxxxiv.,  art.  IV. 

9  lxxxiv.  vel  lxxxvi.,  art.  II, 

10  Do.  conciusio, 


164  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


in  any  way  blunting  its  sense  of  sin,  of  pardon,  or  of 
communion  with  God.  But  though  in  religion  we  may 
freely  concede  the  ‘  right  of  the  individual  to  a  general 
haziness’,  the  same  concession  must  on  no  account  be 
extended  to  theology.  Clearly  the  systematic  theologian 
must  not  shirk  a  question  because  it  is  difficult. 

The  general  question  of  a  future  life  cannot  be  called 
unimportant.  Lord  Haldane,1  Professor  Bosanquet,2 
and  others  have,  no  doubt,  done  excellent  work  in  showing 
that  religion  is  not  to  be  identified  with  mere  other¬ 
worldliness.  At  all  times  our  chief  question  must  be, 
not  ‘  What  is  to  be  hoped  for  in  a  world  beyond  ?  ’  but 
‘  What  is  the  true  significance  of  the  world  which  confronts 
us  ?  *  But  necessary  as  the  protest  against  other-worldli- 
ness  is,  it  is  still  something  of*a  half-truth.  ‘  Hegel says 
Dr.  Bosanquet  with  evident  pride,  ‘  never  asks  “  Is  it  ?  ”, 
but  always  “  What  is  it  ?  ”  '  Yet  the  question  “Is  it  ?  ” 
— “  Is  there,  for  example,  a  future  life  ?  ” — is  not  a 
foolish  question  always.  Indeed  the  man  who  by  seeing 
his  experiences  in  their  true  significance  knows  eternal 
life  here,3  gains  a  heightened  interest  in  eternal  life  here¬ 
after.  If  we  have  made  the  best  of  earthly  friendship  we 
shall  be  the  more  eager  to  meet  our  friends  again.  If 
we  have  sought  in  philosophic  study  for  the  unification 
of  all  knowledge,  we  shall  wish  to  complete  the  work 
which  is  here  left  imperfect.  If  we  have  struggled 
for  inward  purity,  we  shall  desire  a  life  in  which  absolute 


1  Pathway  to  Reality,  first  series,  p.  16. 

2  Introductory  Essay  to  his  translation  of  The  Introduction 
to  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art  (Kegan  Paul,  1886). 

3  St.  John  xvii.  3,  cf.  1  John  iii.  15  ;  v.  20. 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


165 

purity  can  be  realized.  In  general,  if  we  have  accepted 
the  Christian  standard  of  values  and  not  the  Oriental 
one,  we  shall  wish  to  bring  ‘  all  thoughts,  all  passions,  all 
delights  ’ — including  the  beatific  vision  of  God — within 
the  unity  of  a  single  experience. 

In  close  connexion  with  the  hope  of  a  future  life  stands 
the  hope  of  a  bodily  resurrection.  A  disbelief  in  the 
resurrection  of  the  body  has  been  regarded  sometimes 
as  a  sign  of  intellectual  superiority.  ‘  For  though  the 
body  dies  the  soul  is  still  immortal.’  The  words  have 
been  made  familiar  by  their  association  with  melodious 
music.  It  is  to  the  undying  credit  of  High  Churchmen — 
characteristic  at  once  of  the  sound  sense  and  high  breeding 
of  that  school — that  they  have  kept  alive  in  English  re¬ 
ligion  the  faculty  to  perceive  that  in  such  a  phrase, 
however  well  adapted  to  a  musical  setting,  we  have  what 
the  Christian  mind  must  regard  as  an  ill-balanced  anti¬ 
thesis.  The  prevailing  tendency  of  Christian  hope  has 
been,  not  towards  a  doctrine  of  the  essential  indestructi¬ 
bility  of  the  soul,1  but  rather  towards  a  faith  which 
expects  the  future  life  of  soul  and  of  body  on  the  same 
general  grounds.  The  sentiment  which  condemns  the 
desire  for  bodily  resurrection  as  a  coarse  and  earthy 
hope  is  indeed  but  a  symptom  of  the  same  false  taste 
as  would  expurgate  from  the  TeDeumt he  mention  of  the 
Virgin’s  womb.  Those  who  do  not  perceive  the  false 
delicacy  in  the  one  case  will  not  perceive  it  in  the 
other.  But  at  least  we  must  confront  the  alternatives 
and  take  our  choice.  If  we  regard  the  body  as  evil,  we 

1  The  essential  incorruptibility  of  the  soul  (on  which  see  Summa 
Theol.,  Part  I,  question  75,  art.  VI  :  Sec.  secundae,  question 
164,  art.  I  conclusio  :  St.  Cyril’s  Catechetical  Lectures,  IV,  etc.) 
is  a  doctrine  necessarily  confined  to  the  learned. 


166  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


shall  desire  to  banish  it  from  heaven.  If  we  esteem  it 
as  God’s  good  gift,  we  shall  desire  it  restored  at  the  re¬ 
surrection.  The  former  view  accords  with  the  senti¬ 
ment  of  Eastern  barbarism  :  the  latter  with  that  of  the 
Western  civilization  which  has  deemed  the  body  worthy 
to  be  celebrated  by  the  brush  of  Titian  or  the  chisel  of 
Phidias. 

It  must  be  doubtful,  indeed,  whether  those  who  believe 
in  a  future  life  apart  from  a  bodily  resurrection,  can  ever 
have  thought  out  their  own  meaning.  The  decisive 
question  is  that  which  has  been  asked  by  St.  Thomas  1 
long  ago.  Is  the  saint  in  glory  to  be  conceived  as  ex¬ 
periencing  the  sensations  of  sight  and  touch  ?  That 
sight  and  touch  may  subsist  without  the  support  of 
any  material  substratum  is  the  well-known  doctrine  of 
Berkeley.  But  a  thorough-going  Idealism  is  one  thing  ; 
the  notion  of  matter  as  existing  on  earth  but  discarded  in 
heaven  is  quite  another.  If  the  life  of  the  Blessed  is  con¬ 
ceived  as  involving  the  active  employment  of  the  senses 
of  sight  and  touch,  this  signifies  to  the  plain  man,  who  is 
no  idealist,  that  there  is  in  heaven  matter  to  be  touched 
and  seen — bodies  which,  however  incorruptible,  are  still 
material.  If  on  the  other  hand  we  conceive  heaven — 
as  some  have  conceived  the  intermediate  state — as  a 
life  in  which,  while  possessing  thought  and  memory, 
man  is  deprived  of  sight,  hearing,  touch,  taste  and  smell, 
does  not  this  set  before  us  the  hope  of  a  very  imperfect 
glory  ? a 

1  See  note  above. 

3  On  the  question  whether  the  glorified  body  is  palpable  as  well  as 
tangible,  see  references  below.  Flame,  e.g.,  or  vapour  into  which 
we  can  plunge  our  hands  without  encountering  resistance  is 
tangible  but  not  palpable.  St.  Thomas  holds  the  view  that 
though  the  blessed,  while  remaining  *  tangible  can  render  their 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


167 

Similar  to  the  question  of  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh, 
is  the  question  of  the  revival  in  heaven  of  our  emotions 
and  passions.  Mr.  F.  H.  Bradley  has  drawn  attention 
to  the  general  ‘  revolt’,  as  he  calls  it,  of  modern  Chris¬ 
tianity  against  the  ‘  stern  sentence  of  the  Gospel  ’  which 
declares  that  in  the  life  to  come  we  shall  neither  marry 
nor  be  given  in  marriage.  That  the  meeting  again  of 
lovers,  even  more  than  the  meeting  again  of  those  bound 
together  by  other  ties,  is  prominent  in  the  religious  hope 
of  our  day  is  abundantly  clear.  But  is  this  hope  a 
revolt  from  the  sentence  of  the  Gospel  ?  Surely  not,  if 
the  text  is  taken  in  its  context.  The  error  of  the  Sad- 
ducees  consisted  not  in  pitching  their  hopes  too  high,  but 
rather  in  imagining  that  heaven  must  necessarily  possess 
all  the  limitations  and  restrictions  of  earth.  They 
erred  because  they  underrated  the  power  of  God  to  do 
exceeding  abundantly  above  what  we  ask  or  think.  The 
modern  hope  is  thus  not  so  much  a  revolt  as  a  develop¬ 
ment.  If  the  Christians  of  the  first  age  had  spoken 
boldly  on  this  subject,  they  must  have  incurred  the  sus¬ 
picion — which  has  attached  itself  to  the  followers  of 
Mahomet — of  desiring  a  purely  sensual  Paradise.  The 
frank  development  in  modern  Christianity  of  a  hope 
which,  in  the  circumstances  of  His  time,  was  perforce  left 
undeveloped  by  our  Saviour,  is — if  we  will  reflect  upon  it 
— at  once  a  conspicuous  fulfilment  of  the  promise  that 
we  should  do  greater  works  than  He,1  and  a  testimony  to 
the  power  by  which  He  has  transformed  the  world. 

body  ‘  impalpable  ’  at  will,  they  are  normally  palpable  as  well 
as  tangible.  Supplem.  lxxxiii.  or  lxxxv.,  art.  VI. 

For  a  fuller  discussion  of  this  subject  see  St.  Thomas  in  quartum 
librum  Sententiarum,  dist.  44,  qu.  2,  art.  II.,  qu.  6. 

1  St.  John  xiv.  12. 


1 68  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


Since  then  such  questions  can  hardly  be  ignored  alto¬ 
gether,  what  is  the  practical  duty  of  the  theologian  to¬ 
wards  them  ?  In  our  days  these  problems  are  discussed 
freely,  but  they  are  seldom  dealt  with  systematically. 
Is  the  theologian  bound  to  offer  a  systematic  treatment  ? 

The  question  is  not  without  its  difficulties.  It  is  plain, 
however,  that  the  timidity  which  does  not  venture  be¬ 
yond  scattered  hints  and  tentative  suggestions  belongs 
to  the  spirit  rather  of  unbelief  than  of  faith.  Those  for 
whom  the  Future  Life  is  a  matter  of  deep  concern  will 
be  more  in  sympathy  with  St.  Thomas  who  raises  ques¬ 
tions  of  detail  and  answers  them — with  Mr.  Keble  who 
desires  to  frame  hopes  of  heaven  which  shall  be  new  every 
morning — than  with  the  conventional  teacher  who  will 
not  stray  an  inch  beyond  the  limits  marked  out  for  him  in 
advance  by  the  language  of  the  Bible  and  the  Fathers. 

Yet  it  does  not  follow  that  we  are  to  '  modernize  ’  our 
conception  of  Heaven  in  the  manner  of  certain  popular 
preachers.  These  preachers  have  tried,  not  merely  to 
state  in  general  terms  the  elements  which  must  be  present 
in  a  heaven  adequate  to  our  hopes,  but  actually  to  bring 
these  various  elements  together  into  a  single  connected 
picture.  They  have  described  a  type  of  existence  in 
which,  besides  engaging  in  the  exercises  of  religion,  we 
should  read  the  poetry  of  Shakespeare  and  be  enrap¬ 
tured  by  the  melodies  of  Mozart :  in  which  the  golden 
harps  of  tradition  should  be  supplemented  by  the  violins 
and  pianofortes  of  modern  life.  All  such  attempts  must 
inevitably  end  in  failure.  To  unite  heterogeneous  ele¬ 
ments  in  a  single  scheme — indeed  even  to  arrange  a 
multitude  of  details  of  any  sort  so  as  to  produce  an  im¬ 
pression  of  congruity  and  harmony — is  the  prerogative 
of  genius.  To  unite  in  one  all-inclusive  picture  the 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


169 

multifarious  elements  demanded  by  a  perfect  human 
existence  would  require  genius  that  may  well  be  called 
superhuman.  It  is  the  mark  of  an  age  of  high  culture  to 
perceive  that,  many  as  are  the  varied  and  conflicting 
ideals  which  human  thought  has  framed,  there  is  in 
each  an  element  of  truth.  But  since  Heaven  must  be 
conceived  as  exhibiting  not  merely  comprehensiveness 
but  internal  congruity  and  unity,  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
the  formation  of  a  detailed  picture  of  it  surpasses  the 
power  of  our  imagination.  A  critic  who  has  watched  four 
acts  of  a  drama  with  attention  may  be  able  to  predict 
many  of  the  incidents  which  must  have  a  place  in  the 
concluding  act  :  he  may  yet  be  unable  to  write  the 
concluding  act  himself.  Similarly  we  may  venture  to 
predict  that  in  Heaven  no  single  element  of  good  will 
be  lacking ;  and  yet  may  confess  ourselves  unable  to 
forecast  in  detail  this  last  act  of  God’s  great  Drama  of 
the  Universe. 


But  besides  the  fact  that  the  detailed  description  of 
Heaven  is  beyond  our  powers,  there  are  also  many  positive 
difficulties  with  which  theology  cannot  well  refuse  to 
cope.  It  is  indeed  often  the  vaguer  difficulties  of  senti¬ 
ment,  rather  than  objections  which  can  be  articulately 
expressed,  which  cause  the  modern  world  to  look  un¬ 
sympathetically  upon  the  hopes  of  the  Christian.  There 
are  those  who  feel  that  under  the  cloudless  skies  of  Fra 
Angelico’s  Paradise,  or  amid  the  golden  light  of  the  New 
Jerusalem,  they  would  long  sometimes  for  the  more 
delicate  tints  of  an  autumn  morning  in  Old  England. 
Others  have  the  fear  that  in  a  life  of  perfect  glory  they 
would  be  tortured  by  the  sorrowful  reflection  of  Alexander 


170  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


the  Great  that  there  remained  no  more  worlds  to  conquer. 1 
It  is  the  struggle  against  temptation  that  has  given  life 
its  nobility  and  worth.  What  dignity — they  ask — 
would  remain  in  a  life  from  which  all  temptation  is 
removed  ?  There  are  others  who  know  that  they  have 
learned  much  even  from  the  Pessimism  of  Schopenhauer. 
If  then  there  is  any  single  element  of  correct  feeling  in 
the  temper  of  mind  which  Schopenhauer  has  produced  in 
them,  this  element  of  feeling  must  find  in  the  Universe 
a  corresponding  element  of  fact  which  satisfies  its  demand, 
or  the  Universe  will  pro  tanto  fall  short  of  perfection. 
But  can  a  Universe  which  fulfils  this  demand  fulfil  at  the 
same  time  the  demands  of  Christian  Optimism  ?  There 
are  those  again  who  find  that  in  contemplating  Nature 
their  enthusiasm  is  chiefly7  stirred  by  the  unremitting 
struggle  for  the  perpetuation  and  perfecting  of  the  species. 
They  find  therefore  more  to  repel  than  to  attract  in  an 
immortality  which  relates  only  to  the  perpetuation  of 
the  individual.2  Lastly  there  are  the  numberless  diffi¬ 
culties  associated  with  the  ideas  of  the  infinite  and  the 
eternal.  No  one  who  has  imbibed  anything  of  the  spirit 
of  the  Greeks  can  fail  to  recognize  that  '  measure  ’  '  pro¬ 
portion  *  *  limit,’  or  however  we  name  it,  is  one  among 
the  conditions  of  perfection.  Can  a  Universe  then  be  a 
‘  perfect  Whole  ’  which  is  conceived  as  spreading  itself 
out  indefinitely  in  all  directions  ? 

1  This  sorrowful  reflection  is  made  more  acute  by  the  needless 
assumption  that  in  Heaven  the  warfare  of  earth  must  fade  more 
and  more  into  the  background  of  our  memory.  A  sense  of 
victory  in  which  the  memory  of  the  struggle  remained  ever 
fresh  need  not  be  ignoble. 

8  It  is  curious  to  notice  in  this  matter  the  contrast  between 
modem  and  medieval  sentiment.  See  Summa  Theol.  Supplem. 
lxxx.  vel  lxxxii.,  art.  II.  Conclusio.  ad  Secundum. 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


17X 

Here  then  are  difficulties  enough  to  justify  a  systematic 
method  of  approaching  the  subject.1  Yet  we  ought  not 
to  declare  them  insoluble  till  we  have  made  a  serious 
attempt  to  solve  them  :  and  to  discover  what  in  each 
case  the  difficulty  really  amounts  to. 

Take,  for  example,  those  which  turn  upon  conceptions 
which  may  be  classed  as  aesthetic.  The  only  detailed  pic¬ 
tures  of  a  life  of  glory  which  are  aesthetically  attractive 
are  those  which  are  composed  of  very  simple  elements, 
and  which  therefore — like  the  sea  of  glass  and  the  pearly 
gates  of  the  Apocalypse,  or  the  shouts  and  feasting  of  St. 
Bernard's  hymn — must  be  frankly  accepted  as  symbolic. 
If  we  accepted  the  scenes  depicted,  say,  by  Fra  Angelico 
as  the  real  conclusion  to  the  varied  scene  of  life  as  we 
know  it  on  earth — if  we  thought  that  the  actual  sequel 
to  the  tender  half-tones  revealed  by  the  modern  landscape- 
painter  was  to  be  this  medieval  revel  of  primary  colours — 
the  Universe  would  present  to  us  a  strangely  bewildering 
appearance  of  bizarrerie  and  grotesqueness.  The  texture 
of  our  present  life,  with  all  its  ragged  edges,  is  yet  too 
good  to  be  adequately  mended  by  the  sudden  introduction 
of  a  purple  patch  of  so  incongruous  a  pattern. 

A  distinguished  writer  has  spoken  severely  of  the 
application  of  artistic  analogies  in  theology.  But  we 
are  dealing  here  with  no  mere  analogy.  A  Universe 
that  is  to  be  perfect  must  not  be  aesthetically  incongruous. 
It  must  possess  qualities  which  not  merely  resemble 
those  of  a  work  of  art,  but  are  in  part  the  very  same. 
Against  inartistic  representations  of  Heaven  a  secularist 


1  With  these  difficulties — as  also  with  the  question  of  the 
restatement  of  the  Argument  from  Design — I  am  hoping  to  deal 
at  length  elsewhere. 


172  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

philosophy  will  always  have  an  easy  triumph.  A  purely 
'  unsupernatural  ’  Universe  preserves  at  least  its  unity  of 
style :  and  the  conviction  that  the  world  cannot  violate 
the  demands  of  aesthetic  unity  is  one  of  the  strongest 
of  modern  beliefs,  though  it  does  not  always  find  articulate 
expression. 

It  is  worth  while,  then,  to  point  out  that  a  Christian  con¬ 
ception  of  Heaven  does  not  necessarily  ignore  these 
aesthetic  claims.  Take,  as  an  illustration  of  this,  a  con¬ 
ception  of  the  future  life  which  played  an  important  part 
in  the  popular  religion  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the  Golden 
Legend ,x  comparison  is  made  between  the  present  world 
and  the  Seventy  Years’  Exile  in  Babylon,  the  end  of  the 
world  being  compared  to  the  return  of  Israel  to  its  own 
land.  The  former  is  signified  by  the  seventy  days  of 
Septuagesima,  the  latter  by  the  renewed  Alleluias  of 
Easter.  Such  a  symbolizing  of  the  relations  of  earth  to 
Heaven,  by  the  representation  of  the  two  in  one  single 
ceremonial  scheme  of  Christian  holy-days  is  closely 
akin  to  the  conception  of  the  Universe  as  a  drama  needing 
more  than  one  act  for  its  completion.  The  '  time  of  the 
deviation  ’  is  conceived  as  the  ‘  prelude  ’  to  the  life  of 
glory  :  or  Heaven  as  the  ‘  finale  ’  to  the  *  time  of  our 
pilgrimage  of  the  life  of  this  world.’  If  then  we  are  dis¬ 
posed  to  feel  that  a  future  life  of  incorruption  would  vio¬ 
late  the  unity  of  nature — would  be  inconsistent  with  the 
principle  that  in  mundo  non  datur  saltus,  non  datur 
hiatus ,2  and  also  with  the  Aristotelian  faith  that  ‘  the 
world  is  not  full  of  episodes  like  a  bad  tragedy  ’3 — it  is 

1  See  Cax ton’s  translation  ( Temple  Classics,  vol.  i.  p.  55). 

2  See  Kant,  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Meiklejohn,  p.  170. 

German  paging,  pp.  281,  282.  3  Metaph .,  p.  1090b,  1076a. 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


173 


well  that  we  should  observe  that  even  a  sud  vi-Oii  oiicvixC^e 
of  style  is  not  necessarily  inconsistent  with  an  ultimate 
artistic  unity. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  prove  this  statement  by  many 
examples  from  the  history  of  modern  art.  In  order, 
however,  to  avoid  allusions  to  particular  works,  we  may 
take  an  imaginary  case.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  a 
prelude  written,  say,  in  the  polyphonic  style  of  the 
Troubadours,1  should  form  an  integral  part  in  a  musical 
work  of  which  all  the  rest  followed  the  laws  of  modern 
music.  The  Troubadour  music  differs  from  modern 
music,  not  only  in  being  subject  to  peculiar  laws  of  harmony 


1  The  following  part-song  is  attributed  to  Adam  de  la  Hale — 


( 


■  ('  '  ■  r 

- 

- — 1 - ! — 7^®“  — 1 

L-S?  U 

7  V' 

r  & - - - -| 

- 

—  ^-3 - - - - — 

r  — 

f - 

- ^ — 

wr 

1 

See  Ritter’s  History  of  Music,  p.  48  (William  Reeves,  1876). 


174  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

and  counterpoint,  but  also  in  general  aesthetic  character — 
that  is,  in  being  subject  to  those  unwritten  laws  by  obedi¬ 
ence  to  which,  no  less  than  to  those  which  can  be  definitely 
stated  in  the  form  of  rules,  the  character  of  a  style  of  art 
is  constituted.  Thus  in  the  case  supposed  the  very 
contrast  of  styles  would  be  a  necessary  element  within 
the  unity  of  the  composer’s  scheme.  If  the  work  were 
not  a  mere  jeu  d’ esprit,  but  a  seriously  developed  musical 
conception,  then  we  must  regard  the  whole  composition 
as  subject  to  laws  which  determine  how  this  development 
is  to  take  place,  and  therefore  the  very  violation  of 
law — the  transitions  from  the  laws  of  the  one  style 
to  those  of  the  other — would  itself  be  subject  to  a  law 
of  more  comprehensive  kind.  Such  an  example  is  suffi¬ 
cient  to  show  that  unity  of  conception  and  plan  may  exist 
where  there  is  no  complete  uniformity  either  in  respect 
of  obedience  to  rules  or  in  respect  of  aesthetic  character. 
For  any  one,  then,  who  on  other  grounds  is  disposed  to 
believe  in  a  future  life,  but  is  held  back  because  he  feels 
that  such  a  change  of  physiological  conditions  as  is 
implied  in  a  resurrection  from  the  grave  is  incompatible 
with  the  unity  of  the  world  as  a  system,  it  might  be  well 
worth  while  to  work  out  this  analogy  in  detail :  since  a 
rational  hope  of  Heaven  assuredly  implies  a  conception  of 
the  Universe  at  large,  such  that  this  Present  Life  and  a 
Life  of  Glory  can  both  of  them  be  contained  within  it 
consistently  with  aesthetic  unity  and  with  the  reign  of 
Law.  The  discussion  of  such  an  analogy  will  throw  light 
not  only  on  this  special  miracle,  the  Future  Life,  but 
upon  the  question  of  all  miracles  in  general. 


There  remain,  however,  harder  problems  than  that  of 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


175 


the  miraculous  as  such.  The  belief  in  a  future  life  can 
hardly  be  expressed  without  our  needing  to  employ  at 
some  point  the  words  ‘  infinite  ’  and  ‘  eternal  \  The 
problems  of  infinity  and  eternity  will  be  found  incapable 
of  ready  solution.  Solution  is  indeed  impossible  apart 
from  a  thorough-going  criticism  of  the  ideas  which  these 
conceptions  involve.  And  thus  we  are  carried  at  once 
into  the  distinctive  province  of  the  philosopher. 

The  same  result  follows  from  a  treatment  of  other 
religious  problems  also.  We  cannot  without  a  philosophic 
‘  criticism  of  our  categories  5  deal  really  adequately  with 
the  problems  of  Evil,  of  Freedom,  or  of  God.  If  then 
we  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  theology  is  bound 
to  develop  systematically  the  optimistic  hope  which 
Christianity  implants  in  the  human  breast,  there  is  a 
further  conclusion  which  follows  from  this  one  :  namely 
that  the  theologian  should  lay  to  heart  the  advice  of  Mr. 
Bradley  to  be  ‘  in  earnest  with  his  metaphysics  \  Ex¬ 
perience  indeed  shows  convincingly  that  theology  must 
take  its  choice.  A  theology  which  consistently  refuses 
to  be  philosophical  must  in  the  end  degenerate  into  myth¬ 
ology.  Those  questions,  therefore,  of  idealistic  criticism, 
which  in  many  human  pursuits  we  may  safely  ignore, 
cannot  be  ignored  without  loss  when  we  come  to  deal 
systematically  with  the  beliefs  of  religion. 

Note. 

‘  The  modern  world ',  it  may  be  suggested,  ‘  will  not  be 
brought  back  to  a  clear  faith  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body, 
till  theology  has  answered  certain  questions  which  modern 
physical  knowledge  will  put  to  it,  as  the  simpler  questions 
which  occurred  to  the  medieval  mind  were  answered  by  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas.  Is  the  scene  of  the  future  life  to  be  some 
part  of  the  Solar  System,  or  some  locality  outside  it  ?  Or 


176  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


is  the  physical  Universe  to  be  so  completely  remodelled, 
that  the  words  ‘  Solar  System  '  will  become  unmeaning  ? 
Or,  again,  may  we  decline  these  questions  on  the  ground 
that  Space  and  Time  are  merely  the  ‘  forms  of  our  intuition  ’, 
and  that  there  is,  therefore,  no  need  to  exhibit  the  hopes  and 
beliefs  of  religion  in  a  spatial  and  temporal  representation  ?  ’ 

Such  problems  cannot  be  profitably  discussed  apart  from 
a  general  discussion  of  Idealism. 

If  human  consciousness  is  real,  and  Time  ‘  mere  appear¬ 
ance  ’,  then  we  seem  compelled  to  adopt  in  some  form  a  doc¬ 
trine  of  the  ‘timeless  Self’.  But  need  the  ‘timeless  Self' 
be  conceived  precisely  as  it  appears  in  the  philosophy  of  T. 
H.  Green  ? 

The  ‘  Self  ’  is  commonly  thought  under  the  category  of 
‘  Substance ',  in  the  sense  in  which  Substance  is  the  ‘  correlatum 
of  change But  in  its  more  fundamental  significance,  Sub¬ 
stance  is  rather  the  ‘  correlatum  of  attributes’.  To  think  of 
a  ‘  thing '  as  ‘  that  which  has  attributes '  is  more  natural, 
even  to  plain  common  sense,  than  to  think  of  it  as  ‘  that  which 
changes.'  Now — since  the  ‘  Self '  of  yesterday  and  the  ‘  Self ' 
of  to-day  have  different  attributes — ought  not  the  Self  to 
be  thought  of  rather  as  a  ‘  plurality  of  connected  substances  ' 
than  as  ‘  one  single  substance  '  ?  (The  Self  of  yesterday 
was  ‘  in  pain  ’  :  the  Self  of  to-day  is  ‘  at  ease '.  Can  these 
two  contradictory  attributes  really  belong  to  one  ‘  substance  '  ? 
Is  it  not  just  in  virtue  of  its  attributes  that  the  Substance  is 
what  it  is  ?  Even  apart,  then,  from  a  denial  of  the  reality 
of  Time,  the  notion  of  the  self  as  a  ‘  substance  permanent 
through  changes  ’  seems  to  be  but  an  illogical,  though  con¬ 
venient,  makeshift). 

The  question  would  then  arise,  How  far  on  this  theory  can 
we  give  an  adequate  account  of  the  world — an  account  true 
to  the  facts  of  moral  and  physical  experience  ?  If  Time  is 
not  real,  the  supposed  changes  in  the  Self  are  not  real  either. 
If  then  we  replace  our  common  conception  of  the  Self  as 
*  one  substance  remaining  permanent  through  change '  by 
the  conception  of  a  number  of  ‘  non-temporal  selves  ' — distinct 
substances  connected  by  a  partial  community  of  attributes, 
by  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility,  and  in  other  ways — if, 


A  FUTURE  LIFE 


177 


further,  we  regard  the  existence  of  such  ‘  selves  ’  (our  own 
and  ‘other  people’s)  and  the  experiences  they  contain  (to¬ 
gether  with  the  laws  by  which  they  and  their  contents  are 
prescribed  and  in  various  ways  connected)  as  comprising 
the  whole  truth  of  the  Universe,  can  we  state  this  hypothesis 
in  such  a  way  as  to  justify  the  methods  by  which  in  science 
and  common  life  we  seek  for  knowledge  ? 

In  reflecting  on  this  subject  there  are  two  things  which 
it  may  be  well  to  bear  in  mind. 

(1)  The  antithesis  ‘matter  v  mind’  is  not  identical  with 
the  antithesis  ‘object  v.  subject’.  My  pain  of  yesterday  is 
the  ‘object’  of  my  present  knowledge.  Unless  my  memory 
is  a  delusive  dream,  the  pain  which  I  remember  is  independent 
of,  and  distinct  from,  my  remembrance  of  it :  and  the  Self 
which  felt  the  pain  as  real  as  the  Self  which  without  feeling 
it  remembers  it.  This  is  a  simple  truth  which  some  state¬ 
ments  of  the  doctrine  of  the  ‘timeless  self’  seem  to  ignore. 
Is  the  reality,  then,  of  this  ‘  Self  suffering  pain  ’,  which  is  the 
object  of  memory,  dependent  upon  its  being  ‘  really  in  past 
time  ’  just  as  memory  represents  it  to  be  ?  or  may  we  say 
that  while  this  ‘  suffering  Self  ’  is  real,  its  ‘  pastness  ’  is  an 
illusion  ? 

(2)  The  chief  arguments  by  which  we  may  deny  the  abso¬ 
lute  reality  of  Space  are  just  as  valid  mutatis  mutandis  against 
the  reality  of  Time.  (E.g.  ‘Space  must  be  conceived  under 
mutually  contradictory  predicates  :  as  a  quantum,  and  as 
not  a  quantum ;  as  having  size  yet  no  size  in  particular ;  as 
a  Whole  containing  parts,  and  yet  not  a  whole,  since  no 
cubic  area,  however  large,  can  be  such  that  in  it  “none  of 
the  parts”  of  space  “are  lacking”'  etc.,  etc.,  etc.) 

The  treatment  of  the  subject  by  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell, 
and  by  Mr.  H.  A.  Prichard  ( Kant's  Theory  of  Knowledge) 
is  worthy  of  the  most  careful  study,  even  by  those  who  are 
not  disposed  to  find  such  reasoning  conclusive. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  AND  THE 

INCARNATION 

ET  us  now  again  pause  to  take  note  of  the  results 


-L— '  which  we  have  reached.  These  may  be  brought 
under  three  headings. 

We  have  seen,  first,  that  a  very  great  part  of  our 
religious  belief  is  based — not  on  the  argument  from 
authority  nor  on  any  chain  of  reasoning — but  directly 
on  moral  insight  and  other  personal  experiences.  The 
theology  of  Ritschl  consciously  traces  these  doctrines  of 
the  faith  to  the  source  from  which,  in  all  ages,  the  devout 
soul  has  unconsciously  drawn  them.  Thus  our  first 
task  is  boldly  to  apply  the  Ritschlian  method  vrherever  it 
is  applicable. 

We  have  found,  secondly,  that  the  Ritschlian  method 
can  accomplish  only  part,  and  not  the  wdiole,  of  the 
theological  task.  If  faith  in  Duty  is  one  ‘  grain  of  mustard 
seed  n  faith  in  the  rationality  of  the  world  is  another. 
Unless  this  latter  principle  is  interpreted  in  an  optimistic 
sense 1  2 * *  it  becomes — as  we  saw7 — too  vague  to  have  any 
meaning.  But  if  it  is  interpreted  as  it  has  been  inter- 

1  Cf.  chap.  i. 

2  The  ‘  rational  ’  universe  might  be — as  Dr.  Rashdall  argues 

— a  sort  of  *  infernal  machine  ’,  or  indeed  anything  else  that  could 

be  described  under  general  principles.  See  Chap.  xv. 


178 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  179 

preted  above,  then  its  consequences  are  of  the  most  far- 
reaching  character.  A  theology  which,  in  singleness  of 
aim,  should  set  itself  to  the  carrying  out  of  these  two 
principles  to  their  results  would  be  a  ‘  free  theology  ’  in 
its  methods,  however  conservative  it  might  happen  to  be 
in  its  conclusions. 

Thirdly  the  constructive  task  to  which,  on  this  reading 
of  its  duty,  theology  is  called,  brings  us  into  contact  with 
idealistic  criticism.  If  any  form  of  Idealism  is  correct, 
it  follows  that  apart  from  a  thorough  recasting  of  our 
common  conception  of  the  Universe  no  serious  advance 
in  systematic  theology  can  take  place. 

What  would  be  the  effect  on  theology  if  these  three 
principles  were  accepted  ?  It  does  not  seem  possible 
at  the  present  moment  to  look  very  far  ahead.  If  a 
principle  is  sound  we  may  leave  its  consequences  with 
Him  Who  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning.  We  may 
venture,  however,  to  forecast  some  of  the  more  immediate 
effects  to  which  these  principles  will  lead,  and  to  illustrate 
them  by  a  brief  consideration  of  the  Doctrine  of  the 
Trinity. 


To  suppose  that  this  doctrine  is  a  mere  ‘  embarrassment 
to  religion  \  retained  solely  in  the  interests  of  a  too 
conservative  orthodoxy,  is  a  pure  mistake.  The  belief 
in  the  divinity  of  Our  Lord — even  if  accepted  on  Ritsch- 
lian  grounds  and  in  a  Ritschlian  sense — cannot  be  left 
unrelated  to  our  general  Theism.  The  Ritschlian 
Christology,  like  the  older  one,  needs  reconciliation  with 
Monotheism. 

The  ‘  Trinitarian  *  problem,  then,  is  far  from  being 


i8o  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


a  gratuitously  accepted  burden.  It  arises  in  the  first 
place  because  the  Christian  Church  from  the  beginning 
has  been  compelled  by  the  clear  witness  of  experience  to 
recognize  the  Godhead  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  This  witness 
is  constant  in  all  ages.  We  can  all  learn — if  we  will — 
to  distinguish  the  ‘  Inward  Voice  ’  which  has  a  claim  to 
our  obedience  from  rival  inward  voices  which  tend  to 
obscure  its  authority.  When  we  have  once  distinguished 
this  ‘  Voice  ’  from  the  others,  we  find  that  its  claim 
upon  us  is  quite  absolute.  Therefore,  if  it  is  to  be  theolo¬ 
gically  described,  it  must  be  described  not  as  an  ‘  emana¬ 
tion  from  God  ’  merely,  or  as  a  gift  of  God — as  much  as 
this  might  be  said  of  other  elements  in  our  conscious  life 
— but  as  God  Himself. 

It  is  equally  a  matter  of  experience  that  the  Spirit 
testifies  of  Jesus  :  and  testifies  that  His  law — when  we 
have  distinguished  it  from  the  various  misrepresentations 
of  its  meaning — is  one  which  the  awakened  soul  can 
never  disobey  without  self-blame.  No  higher  conception 
of  the  Will  of  God  can  be  framed  than  the  conception  of  a 
Will  which  is  binding  absolutely  upon  the  conscience. 
Jesus  is  our  God  because  in  all  things  He  is  our  lawful 
Master. 

Thus  the  only  open  question  on  this  subject — for 
those  who  have  accepted  Christ  as  their  God  on  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  Inward  Voice — concerns  the  Godhead  of  the 
Creator. 

The  heresies,  however,  which  reduced  the  Creator  to 
the  level  of  a  Demiurge,  whose  work  Jesus  came  to 
correct,  were,  of  course,  decisively  rejected.  The  whole 
influence  of  Jesus  is  against  them  at  every  point.  In 
spite  of  the  facts  of  evil,  the  Christian  can  still  see  the 
Universe  at  large  as  an  embodiment  of  the  same  Holy  Will 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  181 


which  has  manifested  itself  more  unequivocally  by  the 
Spirit  in  the  heart  and  by  Jesus  on  the  stage  of  history. 

The  same  problem  therefore  arises  for  us  as  arose  for 
the  early  Gentile  Church.  How  are  we  to  reconcile 
this  threefold  application  of  the  Divine  Name  with  the 
claims  of  that  Greek  and  Jewish  Monotheism  from  which 
Christianity  has  never  tried  to  cut  itself  free  ?  What  is 
the  relation  between  the  Christology  which  is  the  product 
of  knowing  Christ  '  after  the  inward  man  ’,  and  the  Mono¬ 
theism  which  is  reached  by  the  Argument  from  Design  ? 


Not  only  the  Orthodox  Dogma,  but  the  heresies  also, 
were  attempts  to  answer  this  question.  How  then  does 
Orthodoxy  stand  to  the  heresies  ?  Is  Hume  right 
when  he  says  that  the  latter  were  always  the  more  '  reason¬ 
able  ’  ? 

It  would  be  truer  to  say  that  the  heresies  were  *  clearer  * 
in  the  sense  in  which  ‘  all  shallows  are  clear.’  What  for 
example  could  conceivably  be  shallower  than  the  doctrine 
which  passes  under  the  name  of  ‘  Sabellianism  ’ — the 
suggestion  that  ‘  God  is  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, 
according  to  the  diverse  capacities  in  which  He  acts  ’  ? 
It  is  plain  that  this  doctrine  denies  in  effect  the  reality  of 
the  ‘  filial  relation  ’  of  Jesus  to  the  Father  :  and  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  problem  could  never  have  arisen 
if  it  had  been  capable  of  so  simple  a  solution. 

Arianism,  again,  denies  the  supreme  claim  of  Jesus 
to  our  homage — a  claim  which  in  the  genuine  Christian 
consciousness  is  prior  to,  and  clearer  than,  the  belief  in 
the  Godhead  of  the  Creator  ;  since  it  is  not  as  mere 
‘  World-maker  ’  that  the  Father  is  recognized  as  God 


X82  religion  in  an  age  of  doubt 


but  primarily  as  the  Father  of  Him  Whom  the  Christian 
acknowledges  as  Lord. 

As  against  these  heresies,  then,  the  orthodox  dogma 
has  the  merit  of  recognizing  and  uniting  some  of  the  most 
important  of  religious  truths.  It  recognizes,  first,  that 
the  Spirit  which  speaks  in  our  hearts  speaks  with  absolute 
authority :  secondly  that  the  same  high  claim  belongs  to 
the  ‘  law  of  Christ  *  as  this  law  is  embodied  in  Christ’s 
Person  and  life :  thirdly  that  the  older  rationalistic 
Theism  which  saw  in  the  world  sufficient  evidence  of 
divine  creation  and  control  was,  so  far  as  it  went,  a 
sound  way  of  thinking :  and  lastly  that  these  three 
beliefs,  if  true,  cannot  be  mutually  incompatible ;  that 
the  Church  must  therefore  strive  to  weld  them  together 
within  a  single  doctrinal  system. 

To  admit  that  this  last  task  was  accomplished  with  some 
measure  of  success  is  to  admit  the  religious  value  of  the 
Trinitarian  dogma.  In  truth,  wherever  this  dogma  is 
taught  faithfully,  even  if  unintelligently,  it  seldom  fails 
to  produce  some  good  effect.  To  learn  the  supreme  claim 
of  the  Inward  Voice,  and  of  Jesus,  to  our  obedience ; 
to  learn  to  look  on  the  Power  which  rules  the  world  as 
the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ ;  are  genuinely  religious 
lessons.  And  when  even  a  child  has  learned  to  know 
God  in  these  three  ways — so  long  as  the  knowledge  is 
religious  and  not  merely  dogmatic — it  will  never  occur 
to  him  to  think  that  he  is  thus  learning  to  believe  in  more 
Gods  than  One. 


The  attitude,  however,  of  a  ‘  free  theology  ’  towards  this 
doctrine  must  differ  in  some  respects  from  that  of  the 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  183 


ordinary  orthodox  schools.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
in  fact  rather  the  statement  of  a  problem  than  the  solution 1 

of  it. 

There  are  of  course  many  writers,  even  of  the  narrowest 
school  of  orthodoxy,  who  are  ready  on  occasion  to  take 
this  view — who  admit  that  the  doctrine  is  ‘  negative 
rather  than  constructive  ' ;  a  defence  against  error  rather 
than  a  final  and  satisfactory  description  of  the  nature  of 
God  ;  a  product  of  Greek  thought  and  therefore  not  wholly 
above  the  reach  of  philosophic  criticism. 

Yet  in  making  this  admission  they  at  the  same  time 
tolerate — or  even  use — language  inconsistent  with  it. 
*  God  ' — it  is  said — '  Who  alone  knows  the  mystery  of  His 
own  Nature,  has  told  us  1  that  "  eternal  generation  ”  and 
“  procession  ”  are  the  best  words  which  the  poverty 
of  our  language  can  supply  by  which  this  mystery  can  be 
expressed.'  The  conclusion  is  drawn  that  we  are  bound 
to  use  these  terms,  even  if  we  do  not  precisely  understand 
their  meaning. 

Thus  it  becomes  a  matter  of  real  importance  to 
religion  to  insist  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  did  not 
drop  down  from  Heaven.  Unless  the  doctrine  is  to  be 
reverently  laid  up  in  a  napkin,  we  must  insist  on  the 
right  to  deal  with  it  freely. 

That  it  was  not  in  any  supernatural  sense  ‘  revealed  ’, 
that  its  origin  is  not  particularly  ‘  mysterious ',  seems  to 
be  becoming  daily  more  plain  as  a  pure  matter  of 
history. 2 

But  the  claims  of  modern  theology  to  deal  freely  with  this 

1  See  note  at  end  of  chapter. 

2  Cf.  Loisy,  Autouv  d’un  petit  Livve,  p.  15 1.  La  formule 
ecclesiastique  n’est  point  mysterieuse  ;  du  moins,  son  origine 
et  son  contenu  logique  sont  assez  clairs,  cf.  p.  153! 


184  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

Dogma  do  not  depend  solely  upon  history.  Let  us  suppose 
that  it  could  be  proved  that  its  origin  was  more  sudden 
and  unaccountable  than  recent  research  suggests.1  It 
is  not  clear  that  the  Dogma  would  gain  authority  by  this 
demonstration  :  it  might  reasonably  be  argued  that  it 
would  rather  lose  it.  But  in  any  case  this  is  not  the  fact 
we  are  most  concerned  with.  We  are  concerned,  in  this 
connexion,  rather  with  the  present  than  with  the  past. 
Whatever  its  origin,  the  Doctrine  still  retains  its  hold, 
in  Protestant  no  less  than  in  Greek  and  Roman  Catholic 
lands.  It  is  an  instrument  for  expressing  truths  which 
are  still  of  value  to  the  religious  consciousness.  If  then 
we  find  it  a  good  but  somewhat  imperfect  instrument  for 
expressing  our  own  beliefs,  it  seems  a  plain  duty  that  we 
should  subject  it  to  a  frank  and  open  criticism. 

How  clear  a  title  the  doctrine  has  to  our  respect  we 
have  partly  seen  already.  If  the  early  Church  had  taken 
a  kind  of  ‘  Ritschlian  ’  line — had  said  that  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  was  made  clear  by  the  Spirit  to  the  pure  in  heart 
and  that  it  was  needless,  or  even  wrong,  to  raise  ques¬ 
tions  as  to  His  relation  to  the  Creator — Christianity 
would  always  have  had  popular  rationalistic  Theism  as  a 
hostile  force  upon  its  flank.  And  such  Theism  is,  and 
deserves  to  be,  a  formidable  foe.  The  men  of  highest 
faith  will  perceive  readily  that  no  theory  of  His  relation 
to  the  Father  can  make  Jesus  any  more  divine  than  they 
already  know  Him  to  be.  But  men  of  highest  faith  are 

1  It  is  less  usual  now  than  formerly  to  ascribe  the  Baptismal 
Formula  in  St.  Matt,  xxviii.  19  to  our  Lord  Himself.  The  possi¬ 
bility  of  interpolations  in  the  first  Gospel  has  been  brought  home 
to  the  minds  of  many  by  consideration  of  the  parentheses  on  the 
subject  of  Divorce  in  St.  Matt.  v.  32  and  xix.  9. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  185 


rare:  and  the  question  ‘  If  Jesus  did  not  make  the 
world,  what  right  has  He  to  claim  to  be  God  ?  1  would 
always  have  been  asked.  Nor  is  such  a  question  due 
wholly  to  lack  of  intelligence.  It  is  due  on  one  side,  no 
doubt,  to  a  partial  confusion  of  thought — as  what  has 
been  already  said  will  have  shown.  It  is  due  on  the 
other  to  the  rooted  optimism  of  the  human  mind,  which 
is  unwilling  to  believe  that  any  one,  or  any  thing,  can 
be  morally  greater  than  the  power  by  which  the  whole  of 
reality  is  ordered. 

Thus  we  may  fairly  say  that  the  Greek  Fathers,  starting 
with  the  perception  of  the  absolute  supremacy  of  Jesus, 
and  with  the  particular  Theistic  conceptions  which  they 
had  inherited,  were  logically  compelled  to  adopt  just  the 
view  they  took  up.  ‘  To  subordinate  the  ethical J — 
says  Ritschl — ‘  to  the  idea  of  the  cosmical  is  always  char¬ 
acteristic  of  a  heathen  view  of  the  world/1  It  is  surely 
clear  that,  for  the  early  Gentile  Church,  there  was  no 
other  way  of  subordinating  the  '  cosmical  to  the  ethical  ' 
except  the  method  they  adopted.  Is  not  the  Consubstan- 
tiality  of  the  Son  with  the  Father  the  one  doctrine  by 
which  the  Christian  estimate  of  Christ  and  the  common 
rationalistic  Theism  can  be  united  ?  To  have  per¬ 
ceived  this,  and  to  have  had  the  courage  to  carry 
the  conviction  out  in  a  systematic  manner,  is  a  work  of 
genius.  To  expect  the  Christians  of  the  Fourth  Century 
to  institute  a  philosophic  criticism  of  rationalistic  Theism 
itself  would  be  to  expect  one  age  to  do  the  work  of  another. 

But  the  work  of  the  Christian  Fathers  has  a  value  which 
is  permanent.  Popular  theology  —  as  distinct  from 
popular  religion — pictures  God  as  living  in  time,  as  a 
person  among  other  persons,  as  in  some  sense  external  to 

1  Ritschl,  op.  cit.  p.  25. 


i86  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


the  world.  Now  though,  in  his  higher  thoughts  of  God, 
even  the  simplest  religious  man  unconsciously  corrects 
this  notion,  no  one  can,  or  ought  to,  dismiss  it  altogether. 
For  one  and  all  of  us,  this  quasi-pictorial  representation 
of  God  is  necessary  for  the  purposes  of  the  religious 
imagination.  And  here  the  superiority  of  orthodoxy 
over  the  heresies  is  peculiarly  obvious.  To  say  that 
before  the  creation  of  the  world  God  '  did  live  and  love 
alone  '  1  furnishes  at  least  a  far  better  mental  picture  than 
the  thought  of  a  Unipersonal  Being  absorbed  through  an 
‘  eternity  of  idleness  ’  2  in  the  contemplation  of  His  own 
perfections. 


But  the  difficulties  of  the  Trinitarian  formula  are  as 
obvious  as  its  advantages.  '  The  Three  Persons  of  the 
Trinity’ — said  Feuerbach3 — ‘  are  not  only  Unum  but  Unus  : 
God  is  a  personal  being  consisting  of  three  persons/  The 
phrase  lies  open  to  criticism ;  but  it  serves  at  least  to 
indicate  the  difficulty  of  applying  to  God  the  usual  con¬ 
ception  of  self-conscious  personality.  It  may  also  lead 
those  who  regard  the  Trinitarian  dogma  as  faultless  to  a 
clearer  definition  of  their  position.  When  they  use  the 
Trinitarian  formula — we  may  ask — what  exactly  do  they 
conceive  themselves  to  be  asserting  ? 

According  to  a  common  definition  personality  is  essen¬ 
tially  exclusive  :  it  involves  the  notion  of  conscious 
experience  which  is  absolutely  private  and  peculiar  to  him 
who  possesses  it.  On  this  view  God,  before  the  creation 

1  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,  162. 

1  Shelley's  Queen  Mab,  vii. 

3  The  essence  of  Christianity  Miss  Evans’  translation.  The 
reference  is  to  St.  Augustine  or  to  the  Athanasian  Creed. 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  187 

of  the  world,  must  be  either  lonely,  or  must  be  conceived 
of  as  broken  up  into  distinct  centres  of  personal  conscious¬ 
ness.  Indeed,  on  such  a  view,  all  persons  divine  and 
human  must  be  essentially  lonely  to  the  end — strangers 
who,  so  far  as  their  inmost  being  is  concerned,  do  not 
intermeddle  with  one  another’s  joy.1  Thus  perhaps  one 
of  the  greatest  services  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has 
rendered  to  human  thought,  has  been  that  it  has  served 
to  keep  before  the  mind  of  man  the  possibility  that  con¬ 
scious  life  may  be  lived  under  conditions  which  do  not 
conform  to  that  extreme  conception  of  the  essential 
privacy  of  personal  existence  which  dominates  much  of 
our  language — a  conception  which  really  seems  inconsis¬ 
tent  with  the  simplest  and  commonest  exhibition  of 
friendship  and  mutual  insight.  It  cannot,  however,  be 
denied  that  a  dogma  which  leads  us  to  think  of  a  '  personal 
being  consisting  of  three  persons’ — to  speak  of  God  as 
‘  Him  ’  and  also  as  ‘  Them  * — is  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  the  very  conception  of  personal  consciousness  upon 
which  it  appears  to  be  built. 

No  one  indeed  can  reflect  long  upon  this  subject 
without  being  confronted  with  difficulties  of  every  kind. 
The  author  of  the  New  Pilgrim's  Progress 2  speculates  as 
to  the  manner  in  which  in  their  childhood  the '  brethren  of 
the  Lord  felt  and  thought  ’  about  '  the  brother  who  was 
only  a  brother  to  them,  however  much  He  might  be  to 
others  a  mysterious  stranger,  Who  had  stood  face  to  face 
with  God  above  the  clouds.’ 

1  On  this  subject,  and  on  many  of  the  other  questions  touched 
in  this  chapter,  see  M.  Webb’s  Problems  in  the  Relations  of  God 
and  Man.  See  esp.  p.  252. 

2  Chap,  xvi.,  sub.  fin. 


1 88  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


It  is  characteristic  of  the  sincerity  of  modern  thought 
that  men  should  have  sought  to  picture  in  detail  what  the 
life  of  God  Incarnate  could  have  been  :  and  at  the  same 
time  should  have  refused  to  be  satisfied  with  a  view 
which  ‘  simply  puts  in  juxtaposition,  during  Our  Lord’s 
earthly  life,  the  divine  and  human  consciousness  ’  and 
‘  represents  Him  as  acting  and  speaking  now  as  God  and 
now  as  Man  ’.  1 

We  find  something  strangely  repellent  in  treating  the 
scene  in  Gethsemane  as  an  incident  in  the  history  of  One 
Who  is  living  a  ‘  double  life ' :  in  conceiving  the  agony 
as  affecting  only  an  outlying  part  of  His  consciousness,  a 
part  of  Him  which  is  related  to  His  divine  nature  as  is  a 
‘  drop  of  water  to  an  ocean  of  wine  *  :  so  that  while 
apparently  in  agony  He  is  really  serene  and  happy  ‘  above 
the  clouds'. 

The  more  we  dwell  on  these  thoughts  the  more  difficult 
does  the  common  notion  of  the  Incarnation  become. 
Nor  is  much  help  afforded  by  the  doctrine  of  a  divine 
*  Kenosis  \  The  criticism  of  Ritschl — ‘  This  way  of 
confessing  Christ’s  Godhead  is  a  ceremony  that  has  lost 
its  meaning  ’2 — does  not  apply  to  the  particular  form  in 
which  the  '  Kenosis  ’  theory  is  chiefly  influential  in  Eng¬ 
land.3  In  this  latter  form  of  the  doctrine,  the  Eternal 
Word  is  conceived  as  ceasing — by  the  voluntary  action 
of  His  own  self-limiting  and  self-restraining  Love — to 
‘  exercise  divine  functions  ’ 4 :  and  there  is  moreover  a 

1  Gore,  Dissertations ,  p.  97. 

a  P.  411,  E.  tr.  German  paging,  388. 

3  Gore,  p.  94. 

4  lb.,  p.  94  :  those  divine  functions  which  are  '  incompatible 
with  a  truly  human  experience  \ 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  189 

definite  refusal  to  attribute  to  Our  Lord  ‘  simultaneously 
omniscience  as  God  and  limitation  of  knowledge  as  man  ’.1 

Yet  the  difficulties  even  so  are  immensely  great.  If 
we  are  to  take  seriously  the  function  of  the  Eternal  Word 
in  the  government  and  preservation  of  the  world,  what 
is  to  be  conceived  as  happening  to  the  Universe  during 
the  season  of  His  partial  ignorance  ?  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  while  He  is  ‘  so  truly  living  under  human  conditions 
as  Himself  to  be  ignorant  ’  the  Eternal  Word  continues 
omnisciently  to  direct  the  course  of  events,  this  would  be 
tantamount  to  dividing  Him,  in  f  Nestorian  ’  fashion, 
into  two  persons,  and  to  a  denial  of  the  real  divinity  of  the 
Jesus  Whom  we  know — and  this  would  be  in  fact  a  denial 
of  the  very  belief  which  is  the  religious  basis  of  the  whole 
doctrine. 

Again  the  deliberate  repression  of  omniscience  by  an 
act  of  will  seems  hardly  more  compatible  with  a  f  really 
human  experience  ’  than  omniscience  itself.  It  is  incon¬ 
sistent  with  real  human  childhood  that  the  infant  God 
should  be  conceived  as  f  remembering  His  experiences 
above  the  clouds'.  Is  His  childhood  any  more  really 
human  if  conceived  as  a  time  when  He  deliberately 
decided  to  forget  them  ? 


If  these  difficulties  are  such  as  the  theologian  cannot 
well  ignore — if  they  suggest  that  the  Trinitarian  dogma 
needs  a  more  drastic  rehandling  even  than  that  which  it 
has  received  in  relation  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Kenosis — 
in  what  direction  are  we  to  look  for  a  solution  ? 

It  seems  a  fairly  obvious  suggestion  that  wTe  should 
give  our  minds  first  of  all  to  f  theology  '  in  the  narrower 

1  Gore,  p.  97, 


igo  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


sense  :  that  is,  to  an  accurate  definition  and  explication 
of  the  religious  conception  of  God.  While  popular  theo¬ 
logy  tends  to  ‘  finite  '  conceptions  of  God — and  thinks,  for 
example,  of  God  as  ‘  Cause ',  and  of  the  world  as  ‘  Effect 1 — 
the  truly  religious  instinct  always  corrects  these  errors. 
According  to  the  popular  dogma  of  Free  Will,  man's 
choice  of  good  or  evil  is  wholly  his  own.  God  gives  the 
occasion — the  call — but  to  man  alone  belongs  the  deci¬ 
sion.  Yet  who  would  carry  this  theory  into  his  acts  of 
worship  ?  'For  that  Thou  didst  call  me  by  Thy  grace,  I 
thank  Thee  :  for  that  I  responded  to  Thy  call  I  thank 
Thee  not :  I  rather  offer  Thee  my  congratulations.  ’ 
From  allowing  his  devotion  to  sink  thus  to  the  level  of  his 
doctrinal  belief,  even  the  severest  of  theologians  is 
kept  back — if  not  by  reverence,  then  by  sense  of 
humour.  Again  if  God  were  simply  the  Cause,  and  the 
world  simply  the  Effect,  some  third  term  would  be  required 
to  bind  these  two  terms  together  :  and  while  we  should 
have  ground  for  thanksgiving  to  God  for  His  gracious 
intentions,  our  gratitude  would  belong  in  equal  degree  to 
this  third  term — to  the  principle,  or  law,  or  whatever  it 
be,  which  effects  that  these  intentions  should  be  carried 
out.  But  to  the  religious  spirit,  of  course,  such  divided 
gratitude  would  be  absolutely  repugnant.  It  was  re¬ 
marked  by  a  witty  High  Churchman  that  some  people 
have  the  same  unreasoning  dread  of  Pantheism  as  others 
have  of  Popery.  There  is  a  type  of  Pantheism,  no  doubt, 
which  Christianity  must  decisively  reject.  Yet  there  is 
a  sense  in  which  all  self-consistent  Theism  is  Pantheism  : 
since  Religion  seeks  in  God  the  Ultimate,  the  Absolute, 
the  All-inclusive. 

We  have  seen  already  how  Plato  finds  the  ultimate 
basis  of  the  world  in  Ideas  ;  how  he  represents  all  things 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  191 

as  following  from  the  meaning  of  the  ‘  Idea  of  the  Good  ’. 
On  this  theory  it  is  in  some  such  formula  as  ‘  the  self¬ 
necessity  of  the  Good  ’  that  the  truth  about  the  Universe 
must  be  summed  up.  Now,  mysterious  as  Platonic 
language  will  always  sound,  some  conception  of  this  kind 
is  after  all  necessary,  if  we  are  to  explain  fully  the  position 
which  religion  assigns  to  God.  God — we  may  say — is  the 
ultimate  and  all-inclusive  Law,  conceived  as  conscious  of 
itself.  To  popular  religion  such  expressions  are  not 
congenial.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  not  a 
true  representation  of  its  meaning.  Christian  Theism 
consistently  rejects  the  notion  of  an  ultimate  Fate  to 
which  God  is  subordinate.  As  Christianity  identifies 
God’s  Will  with  the  Moral  Law,  so  also  Christianity 
identifies  God’s  Will  with  the  ultimate  necessity  of  things, 
the  ultimate  law  of  the  Universe.  It  is  not  easy  to  see 
how  a  divine  Will  so  conceived  can  be  separated  from  the 
reality  in  which  it  issues,  the  events  which  it  wills.  In 
the  necessary  law  ‘  The  world  must  be  so  ’  is  included  the 
reality  ‘  So  the  world  is  ’.  In  other  words,  God  is 
inevitably  regarded — as  religion  never  hesitates  frankly 
to  regard  Him — as  '  all  in  all  ’. 

To  Spinoza  the  human  mind  appears  as  a  ‘  part  ’  of  the 
*  infinite  intellect  of  God  \  1  If  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is  partly  an  expression  of  revolt  against  the  common 
conception  of  personality,  it  leads  us  among  other  things 
to  inquire  whether  human  self-consciousness  can  be  con¬ 
ceived  as  included  within  the  self-consciousness  of  God. 
Or  are  we  to  assert — on  the  other  hand — that  the  exclusion 
of  God  from  full  participation  in  our  conscious  life  is 
necessary  to  the  assertion  of  our  independent  personality 2  ? 

1  Ethics ,  pt.  II.  Prop.  XI. 

2  ‘  What  ’ — the  reader  may  ask — *  is  the  conclusion  to  which 


192  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

Such  questions  suggest,  then,  that  one  of  our  first 
duties  is  to  be  in  earnest  with  our  Theism.  At  some 
points  the  difficulty  would  undoubtedly  be  eased  by  the 
acceptance  of  an  idealistic  theory.  This  seems  specially 
plain  in  regard  to  such  difficulties  as  arise  from  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  Christ’s  ‘  pre-existence  \  But  apart  from  particular 
problems  it  is  clear  that  a  Theism  which  is  in  earnest 
will  seek  to  be  philosophic  ;  and  the  philosopher,  whether 
he  accepts  Idealism  in  any  of  its  forms  or  not,  must  at 
least  not  ignore  it.  And  before  we  talk  much  of  solutions 
we  need  a  just  estimate  of  the  magnitude  of  the  problem. 

these  arguments  are  intended  to  lead  ?  We  know  what  is  meant 
by  a  personal  consciousness.  Are  we  then  to  regard  God  as 
One  personal  consciousness  or  as  Three  ?  ’  To  regard  God  as 
a  *  unipersonal  ’  being — as  simply  one  knowing  and  feeling  mind 
— is  eminently  unsatisfactory.  Knowledge  is  posterior  to,  and 
dependent  upon,  the  truth  it  knows.  Thus  a  God  who  was 
merely  a  Conscious  Mind  would  not  be  God  at  all,  would  not  be 
independent  and  unconditioned.  God  must  therefore  be  taken 
to  include  within  Himself  the  world  which  He  knows. 

The  conception  of  Christ  as  including  within  Himself  the  whole 
of  a  perfected  humanity,  which  is  at  the  same  time  the  complete 
organ  and  adequate  habitation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  suggested 
by  several  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  It  may  be  by  some 
such  thought  as  this  that  the  solution  will  ultimately  be  reached. 
If  Humanity,  united  in  Christ,  is  in  truth  the  *  fulness  ’  of  God 
(Eph.  i.  23)  ;  if  ‘  all  that  God  is,  He  imparts  and  reveals  ’  ;  if 
to  know  all  conscious  experience  and  its  laws  would  be  to  know 
the  whole  truth  concerning  the  Universe  ;  then  perhaps  the 
questions  concerning  the  solitary  existence  of  God  before  the 
world  began  may  be  dismissed  as  idle  nightmares  of  the 
imagination. 

The  mutual  indwelling  of  God  and  Humanity,  as  conceived 
in  Scripture,  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  barbaric  doctrine  of 
a  soul  which  first  has  a  separate  existence,  and  then  is  absorbed 
(or  reabsorbed)  into  God.  The  latter  is  akin  to  the  pure  thought¬ 
lessness  which  conceives  Time  as  followed  by  an  existence  which 
is  timeless, 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  193 

There  are  questions  suggested  by  the  treatment  of  the 
Trinitarian  dogma  in  modern  literature,  which  give  the 
theologian  ample  scope  for  thought. 

What,  for  example,  is  the  bearing  of  theories — like  that 
of  Professor  J.  G.  Frazer1 — which  would  derive  the 
Christian  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  from  barbaric  doctrines 
of  a  divine  Father,  Son,  and  Mother  ? 

What  again  is  the  value  of  the  Trinitarian  speculations 
of  Hegel  ?  Christian  theology  can  hardly  be  satisfied 
till  it  has  demonstrated  that  the  divine  '  Persons  ’  could 
neither  be  more  nor  less  than  three.  But  have  we  any 
clear  conception  as  to  how  this  may  be  done  ? 

What  ground,  again,  have  we  for  believing  Christ  to 
be  a  unique  phenomenon  in  the  Universe  ?  It  has  been 
argued  that  if  any  other  man  evinced  the  same  filial 
attitude  towards  God,  he  would  have  the  same  claim  as 
Christ  has  to  divine  Sonship.  As  a  mere  abstract  state¬ 
ment,  the  argument  is  sound  enough.  For  those  however 
who  connect  with  Jesus  their  conception  of  the  unity  of 
history — who  find  His  pre-eminence  just  in  this,  that  He 
has  gathered  together  in  one  the  children  of  God  that  were 
scattered  abroad — the  supposition  can  hardly  seem  to 
have  much  real  importance.  Are  they  then  justified  in 
replying  that  the  occurrence  of  ‘  another  Jesus  '  is  incon¬ 
sistent  with  an  optimistic  conception  of  the  world  ? 

Further,  what  are  the  separate  beliefs  which  are  involved 
in  religious  faith  in  God,  and  how  far  are  these  consistent 
with  one  another  ?  The  ultimate  and  all-inclusive  law 
of  the  Universe  is  conceived  by  religion  as  a  ‘  Person  to 
Whom  we  can  speak  \  If  then  God’s  Will  prescribes  and 
includes  our  existence,  and  therefore  our  separateness 
from  Him  and  from  one  another,  how  are  we  to  define 
1  Golden  Bough,  vol.  ii.  p.  3  note. 


0 


194  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

the  exact  sense  in  which  human  persons  are  separate  from 
God  ?  If  we  accept  Spinoza's  statement  that  our  minds 
are  ‘  parts  '  of  the  intellect  of  God — or  any  variant  of 
this  view — how  are  we  to  distinguish  this  from  a  theory 
which  either  treats  men  as  merely  subjective  incidents  in  a 
dream  dreamed  by  God  :  or  else  treats  God  as  only  another 
name  for  Humanity  at  large  ? 


A  faith  which  has  the  courage  of  its  convictions  will  be 
stimulated  and  not  discouraged  by  the  multitude  of 
the  problems  which  await  solution.  True  beliefs  cannot 
be  inconsistent  with  one  another.  When  therefore  we 
have  once  seen  that  the  doctrine  of  Christ’s  divinity  is 
based,  not  on  mere  tradition,  but  on  genuine  religious 
experience,  we  shall  then  reasonably  expect  that  the 
entanglements  in  which,  in  its  assertion  of  this  doctrine, 
theology  has  become  involved,  will  not  be  found  in  the 
end  to  be  beyond  all  hope  of  our  unravelling. 


Note. 

It  may  be  objected  that  language  such  as  is  quoted  above 
(p.  183  ‘  God  Who  alone  knows  the  mystery  .  .  .  has  told  us, 
etc.’)  would  be  adopted  nowadays  by  no  theologian  of  repute. 
It  is  true  that  our  more  eminent  writers  prefer  a  different 
phraseology.  Yet  they  continue  to  speak  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Creeds  as  ‘  divinely  revealed  facts  ’ — in  the  sense  in 
which  the  ‘  facts  ’  given  in  experience  are  contrasted  with 
the  ‘  theories  ’  by  which  we  explain  them.  For  Dr.  Illing¬ 
worth  ( Reason  and  Revelation,  pp.  142-143,  cf.  pp.  72-75)  the 
Trinity  is  a  ‘  fact’,  and  a'  historic  fact ’.  Dogma  is  (p.  132) 
‘  epitomized  or  condensed  history’.  It  states  facts  ‘whose 
character  as  facts  rests  on  the  authoritative  statements  of 
Jesus  Christ  ’  (p.  129).  Very  similar  language  has  been 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  195 


employed  by  Dr.  Wace  (See  a  paper  circulated  by  him  to 
the  members  of  the  Convocation  of  the  University  of  Oxford 
in  April  1913).  We  may  compare  also  the  following  sen¬ 
tence  from  a  review  (in  the  Oxford  Magazine)  of  Dr.  Sanday’s 
Christologies  Ancient  and  Modern  :  ‘  On  page  168  there  is 
a  curious  phrase  “  Whatever  the  Homoousion  means  ”,  v/hich 
in  this  context  suggests  (though  it  does  no  more  than  suggest) 
that  the  Homoousion  is  somehow  there,  fallen  down  out  of 
heaven  as  it  were,  to  be  understood  if  possible,  but  anyhow 
to  be  accepted  \  The  reviewer  justly  hesitates  to  attribute 
this  view  to  Dr.  Sanday — a  hesitation  which  will  be  shared 
by  all  the  most  cordial  admirers  of  Dr.  Sanday’s  work.  Such 
expressions,  however,  give  us  the  right  to  demand  that  on 
this  question  theologians  should  express  themselves  with 
the  utmost  clearness. 

Is  the  ‘  eternal  generation  of  the  Son/  then — and  the 
same  question  may  be  asked  with  regard  to  all  the  proposi¬ 
tions  which  together  constitute  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity— 
a  datum  or  an  inference  ?  That  the  pre-existence  of  our  Lord 
was  inferred  in  the  first  days  of  the  Christian  Church  seems 
clear — in  spite  of  the  argument  of  Ritschl  (op.  cit.  p.  379, 
E.T.  401) — from  Philippians  ii.  6-8.  The  question  at  issue 
here  is  not  whether  this  inference  is  correct,  but  whether  the 
doctrine  belongs  to  theology  or  to  history.  That  all  who 
know  Jesus  as  He  is — all  who  really  know  Christian  experience 
from  within — unite  in  assigning  to  Him  a  place  in  the  esteem 
of  mankind  which  none  but  God  can  rightly  occupy,  may 
justly  be  spoken  of  as  a  ‘  fact  \  It  is  the  very  datum  of  experi¬ 
ence  and  history  which  Christian  theology  sets  out  to  explain  : 
and  we  may  justly  allege  that  he  who  is  a  stranger  to  this 
experience  is  thereby  disqualified  from  grasping  Christian 
theology  in  an  adequate  manner.  When,  however,  our 
minds  pass  from  the  statement  that  for  the  Christian  soul 
Jesus  has  ‘  the  value  of  God  ’  to  the  statement  that  He  was 
*  begotten  of  the  Father  before  all  worlds  ’,  this  conclusion, 
however  undeniably  correct  we  may  believe  it  to  be,  is  surely 
at  the  same  time  unquestionably  inferential ;  and  belongs, 
not  to  historical  description  but  to  reflective  theology.  Must 
it  not,  then,  submit  itself  to  rational  criticism  ? 


196  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


It  may  be  objected,  again,  that  no  orthodox  writer  would 
now  maintain  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  a  ‘  solution ' 
of  the  problem  of  the  divine  Nature.  It  is  true  that  our 
orthodox  leaders  are  at  times  willing — only  too  willing — to 
belittle  the  intellectual  achievements  of  the  Age  of  Councils. 
‘  The  Christian  dogma  ’,  exclaims  Dr.  Illingworth  light- 
heartedly,  'explained  nothing’.  He  even  suggests  that  it 
was  not  ‘  intended  ’  to  explain  anything  ( Reason  and  Revela¬ 
tion,  p.  128).  Yet  Dr.  Illingworth  himself  has  argued  with 
great  force,  in  another  context,  that  Theism — far  from  being 
a  mere  statement  of  observed  facts — is  part  of  a  philosophic 
theory  of  the  world  (‘  Theism,  and  all  that  it  involves,  lies 
in  the  region  of  philosophy/  p.  166),  and  that  the  Doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  is  ‘  the  natural  climax  to  which  Theism  logically 
leads  ’  (p.  238).  The  contradiction  between  these  two  views 
is  obvious  (cf.  also  Journal  of  Theological  Studies,  April  1903)  : 
and  it  serves  to  show  how  unlikely  it  is  that  the  opinion 
that  dogma  is  '  condensed  history  *  will  ever  be  consistently 
maintained. 

But,  if  once  we  recognize  that  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
‘  belongs  to  philosophy  ',  we  cannot  refuse  to  ask  how  far  it 
solves  philosophic  problems.  Did  the  Age  of  Councils  lead 
to  any  intellectual  advance  ?  Has  it  taught  us  anything 
concerning  the  nature  of  God  ? 

We  may  venture,  perhaps,  to  answer  this  question  in  some 
such  propositions  as  the  following :  (1)  Theism,  as  Dr.  Illingworth 
admits,  is  itself  a  philosophic  theory — an  attempt  to  account 
for  certain  spiritual  and  other  experiences.  (2)  The  Doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  presents  itself  as  an  emended  or  developed  Theism, 
a  fuller  theory  required  by  the  further  facts  brought  to  light 
in  the  experience  which  is  specifically  Christian.  (3)  Like 
all  theories,  it  is  an  attempted  solution  of  the  problem  which 
brought  it  into  existence.  And,  even  if  it  had  done  no  more 
than  to  bring  the  relevant  facts  together,  and  to  suggest  the 
conditions  under  which  alone  the  problem  can  be  solved, 
we  might  still  claim  that  it  possessed  a  high  intellectual  value. 
But  (4)  the  theory  is,  in  part  at  least,  a  failure.  It  leaves 
us  with  what  appears  to  be  a  paradox — a  '  personal  Being 
consisting  of  three  persons  ’  :  and  even  the  mere  appearance 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY  19 7 

of  contradiction  is  a  mark  of  imperfect  intellectual  success. 
(5)  But  is  the  contradiction  apparent  or  real  ?  Is  it  due  to 
defects  of  language,  or  inherent  in  the  thought  ?  Does  the 
doctrine  need  elucidation  only,  or  a  thorough-going  revision  ? 
Has  it  in  any  measure  solved  the  problem,  or  has  it  merely 
thrown  light  upon  its  character  by  exhibiting  the  difficulty 
of  the  solution  ?  We  may  answer  these  questions  variously. 
Yet  any  view  which  maintains  that  the  Fathers  made  a  real 
advance  in  knowledge  of  the  divine  nature,  is  more  respectful 
than  the  suggestion  that  they  merely  summarized  in  a  com¬ 
pendious  manner  the  statements  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

The  fault,  surely,  of  much  recent  theology  is  that  its  writers 
are  devoid  of  intellectual  hope.  They  believe  that,  so  far 
as  Christian  doctrine  is  concerned,  the  Voice  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  has  been  silent  for  long  ages.  They  do  not  expect 
more  light  upon  the  mystery  of  the  divine  nature  :  there 
is  no  evidence  that  they  even  wish  for  it.  The  suggestion 
that  we,  with  our  better  intellectual  equipment,  might  con¬ 
ceivably  make  as  great  an  advance  in  doctrinal  definition 
as  was  made  in  the  days  of  the  Councils,  they  would  dismiss 
as  almost  an  irreverence.  Their  efforts  are  directed,  not 
so  much  to  the  interpretation  of  the  ancient  phrases — for  why 
interpret  that  which  was  ‘  never  intended  to  explain  any¬ 
thing  ’  ? — as  to  the  mere  justification  of  our  right  to  go  on 
using  them.  They  write  as  if  our  Saviour  had  promised 
to  be  with  us  ‘  always,  even  unto  the  end  ’ — not  ‘  of  the 
world’  but  of  the  ‘first  six  centuries’. 

The  appearance  of  Foundations  has  raised  a  storm,  both 
of  criticism  and  of  enthusiastic  praise.  It  is  surely  the  latter 
which  is  the  more  appropriate  to  the  occasion.  The  theology 
of  Mr.  Streeter  and  his  six  companions — in  striking  contrast 
with  much  that  has  preceded  it — is  all  on  the  side  both  of 
open-mindedness  and  of  hope. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  TASK  OF  THE  FUTURE 

IT  will  be  admitted — even  by  many  who  are  quite  out 
of  sympathy  with  the  aims  of  the  present  volume — 
that  the  Doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  at  any  rate  one  of  the 
subjects  on  which  Theology  has  not  yet  said  its  last  word. 
And  there  are  other  doctrines  with  regard  to  which  the 
same  admission  will  still  more  readily  be  made. 


There  is,  first,  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  The 
history  of  this  doctrine,  no  doubt,  will  be  copiously 
dealt  with  by  the  anthropologists  :  and  it  is  quite  in 
accordance  with  the  best  traditions  of  theology  that  we 
should  seek  for  light  in  this  quarter.  Yet  more  important 
even  than  its  history,  is  the  general  thought  which  it 
embodies. 

It  is  not  always  noticed  that  in  the  religious  desire 
for '  atonement  ’,  ‘  cleansing  ’,  physical  or  spiritual  *  purifi¬ 
cation  ’,  there  lies  hid  a  genuinely  philosophical  thought 
— a  thought  which  has  a  direct  bearing  upon  the  great 
problem  of  Evil.  The  conception  of  a  '  moral  neutraliza¬ 
tion  ’  of  evil  underlies  the  simplest  notion  of  punishment 
and  revenge.  The  evil  deed  remains,  and  so  do  some  of 
its  consequences  :  but  its  offensiveness  is  in  a  measure 

198 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  FUTURE 


199 


removed  by  the  avenging  act.1  The  extension  of  this 
conception  so  that  it  may  be  applied  to  all  the  sin  and  all 
the  evil  of  the  world,  conveys,  at  the  very  least,  a  pro¬ 
foundly  important  suggestion  :  and  it  is  just  this — the 
universal  application  of  a  Jewish  and  Pagan  belief — 
which  first  comes  to  light  in  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement. 


There  is,  again,  the  question  of  Miracles.  This  is  a 
subject  which  concerns  both  the  philosopher  and  the 
historian  :  and  for  neither  has  the  debate  yet  come  to  a 
close. 

It  is  assumed  by  some  that  the  philosophic  case  against 
the  credibility  of  miracle  is  overwhelmingly  strong.  But 
is  this  really  so  ?  It  is  worth  while,  at  least,  that  we 
should  weigh  well  a  suggestion  made  by  Lotze.  ‘  Con¬ 
formity  to  a  universal  law  ’ — he  says — is  not  the  only 
conceivable  form  in  which  we  may  make  that  supposition 
of  a  '  universal  relation  of  mutual  dependence  between 
all  things  real '  which  is  the  ‘  common  foundation  of  all 
scientific  investigation  \  Things  may  be  conceived  as 
*  related  to  each  other  not  primarily  by  permanent  laws 
but  by  the  unchangeable  purport  of  a  plan  ’ ;  and  the  real¬ 
ization  of  this  plan  may  require  from  the  several  elements 
'  not  always  and  everywhere  an  identical  procedure,  but 
a  changeable  one.’ 2 

1  Esther  vii.  10.  The  question  at  issue  is  this — Can  evil 
which  has  actually  existed  be  *  neutralized  *  ?  The  case  of 
punishment  is  a  specific  example  of  this  general  notion  of  ‘  moral 
neutralization  \  The  ceremonial  washings  of  the  Old  Law  are 
another.  It  is  not  implied  that  the  death  of  Christ  is  punitive. 

2  Lotze.  Metaphysic,  vol.  i.  p.  18,  Eng.  tr.  See  chap. 


200  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

So  far  as  the  historical  aspect  of  the  matter  is  concerned 
it  is  natural  that  we  should  first  reverently  examine  the 
utterances  on  this  question  which  are  attributed  to  our 
Saviour  Himself.  The  most  immediately  relevant  facts 
are  briefly  these.  Jesus  expresses  a  clear  disapproval 
of  the  desire  of  the  Jews  for  a  sign  from  Heaven  ;  and  two 
of  His  temptations  result  in  a  definite  refusal  to  perform 
a  miraculous  work.  Yet  He  is  represented  as  teaching 
that  when  due  occasion  comes,  even  the  most  stupendous 
miracles  are  within  the  reach  of  those  who  have  insight 
into  God’s  plans,  and  sufficient  faith  not  to  impede  God’s 
working  by  their  own  distrust.  ‘  If  ye  have  faith  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  shall  say  to  this  mountain 
Remove  hence  to  yonder  place  and  it  shall  remove.’1 
‘  Sayest  thou  “  If  thou  canst  ”  ? — all  things  are  possible 
to  him  that  believeth.’  2  ‘  Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot 

pray  to  my  Father  and  He  shall  even  now  send  me  more 
than  twelve  legions  of  angels,  but  how  then  should  the 
scriptures  be  fulfilled  that  thus  it  must  be  ?  ’ 3 

That  the  first  of  these  passages  appears  to  belong  (as 
does  also  the  story  of  the  centurion’s  faith4)  to  the  ‘  non- 
Marcan  source  ’,  where  the  interest  in  miracles  is  but 
secondary,  adds  much  to  its  importance  for  our  present 
purpose. 5 

xvi.  above.  Cf.  also  Dr.  Rashdall’s  admirable  remarks  on  causa¬ 
tion  in  Contentio  Veritatis ,  p.  52. 

1  St.  Matt.  xvii.  20. 

2  St.  Mark  ix.  23. 

3  St.  Matt.  xxvi.  53,  cf.  Mark  i.  40  ;  v.  34,  etc. 

4  Cf.  also,  ‘  If  I  by  the  Spirit  of  God  cast  out  devils  ’,  Harnack, 
§  29.  Many  of  our  Lord’s  most  notable  sayings  seem  quite 
inseparable  from  the  miraculous  occurrences  with  which  they 
are  connected. 

6  See  Harnack.  Sayings  of  Jesus,  Eng.  tr.,  pp.  131,  163. 
If  the  conversation  with  the  centurion  (Matt.  viii.  8-10  occurred 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  FUTURE 


201 


It  has  been  argued  that  Jesus,  finding  Himself  pos¬ 
sessed  of  mysterious  powers  of  healing,  was  impelled  by 
pity  to  use  them  for  the  benefit  of  sufferers — even  at  the 
risk  of  giving  a  wrong  impression  as  to  the  essential 
purpose  of  His  mission.  But  these  circumstances,  though 
they  might  have  justified  the  miracles  themselves,  would 
assuredly  not  justify  the  words  which  Jesus  uses  concern¬ 
ing  them.  In  such  a  case  would  He  not  have  had  the 
win,  and  have  known  how  to  find  the  means,1  to  disclaim 
powers  which  He  did  not  possess  ? 


There  is,  thirdly,  the  question  of  Sacraments.  There 
are  at  least  two  qualifications  which  must  be  possessed  by 
the  theologian  who  is  to  deal  successfully  with  this  great 
subject.  The  first  is  an  insight  into  the  meaning  and 
value  of  the  sacramental  life.  No  one  can  write  an 
adequate  theory  of  the  Eucharist  who  has  not  in  that 
Sacrament  himself  found  Christ  to  be  the  Bread  of  God 
Which  came  down  from  Heaven.  It  is  a  common  error  to 
regard  the  Catholic  estimate  of  Sacraments  as  evidence 
of  a  non-Evangelical  reliance  on  external  works.  In  truth, 

in  the  alleged  context — or  in  anything  resembling  it — it  is  diffi¬ 
cult  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  a  ‘  notable  miracle  ’  was  per¬ 
formed  :  and  that  our  Lord  had  absolute  confidence  in  His  power 
to  perform  it. 

1  Cf.  chap.  x.  p.  93.  The  strongest  evidence  for  our  Lord’s 
miraculous  powers  lies  in  the  theory  of  miracles  implied  in  the 
words  attributed  to  Him  by  the  Evangelists.  To  invent  miracu¬ 
lous  stories  is  easy  :  but  to  which  of  His  early  followers  can  we 
reasonably  attribute  the  invention  of  this  theory  ?  The  special 
intellectual  gifts  which  the  originator  of  this  theory  must  have 
possessed  were  not  common  in  the  Church — it  may  be  doubted 
whether  they  existed  at  all— till  times  near  our  own.  Cf.  chap, 
ix.  p.  80;  chap  x.  p.  93,  note  3. 


202  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


this  type  of  Christian  piety — far  from  leading  us  to  value 
the  Sacraments  because  they  are  works  of  our  own — tends 
rather  to  see  in  the  Sacraments  a  witness  to  the  truth 
that  the  gifts  and  purposes  of  God  are  independent  of  the 
changing  moods  and  feelings  of  man. 

The  second  qualification — surely  no  less  necessary  than 
the  former — -is  a  grasp  of  the  principle  that  God,  if  God 
is  love,  can  never  be  conceived  as  acting  in  an  arbitrary 
manner.  That  in  Christianity  God  is  represented  as 
never  withholding  His  gifts  from  man  on  any  but  *  moral  ’ 
grounds — that  God  withholds  His  gifts  solely  because  those 
conditions  are  absent  which  alone  would  fit  men  profitably 
to  receive  them — is  a  position  that  is  clearly  stated  by 
theologians  of  all  schools  when  they  are  engaged  in  defend¬ 
ing  the  religion  of  Christ  against  the  unbeliever.  But 
the  same  principle  is  not  always  so  well  remembered  when 
the  purpose  is,  say,  to  convince  the  Quaker  of  the  import¬ 
ance  of  ecclesiastical  ordinances.  A  systematic  doctrine 
of  Sacraments,  then,  would  require  consistency  and 
uniformity  in  this  matter  as  in  others. 


Fourthly,  is  it  not  clear  that  we  need  in  the  non- Roman 
Communions  a  Moral  Theology  as  full  and  complete  as 
that  of  Rome  itself  ?  This  is  a  work  for  which  men  of 
our  race  are  in  some  respects  admirably  adapted.  If 
then  we  could  develop  a  Moral  Theology  which  should  be 
English,  or  British,  rather  than  merely  Anglican,  it  might 
well  be  the  best  systematic  treatment  of  this  subject  that 
the  world  has  yet  seen. 

There  are  two  special  problems  in  Moral  Theology — 
the  question  of  Marriage  and  the  question  of  the  *  Doubt- 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  FUTURE 


203 

ful  Conscience  ’ — which  for  various  reasons  are  becoming 
urgent.1 

In  dealing  with  the  ‘  Doubtful  Conscience  ’  the  Church 
of  Rome  has  drawn  the  distinction  between  those  things 
which  are  ‘  practically  ’  and  those  things  which  are 
merely  '  speculatively  '  doubtful.  For  any  one  who — 
by  sermons  or  otherwise — has  to  guide  the  consciences  of 
others,  this  distinction  is  of  great  practical  importance. 
The  earnestly  religious  man,  dealing  with  these  subjects 
for  the  first  time,  tends  almost  always  to  Rigorism. 
Grasping  the  principle  that  no  one  should  act  with  a 
doubtful  conscience,  since  ‘  whatsoever  is  not  of  faith  is 
sin/  he  is  apt  to  confuse  this  principle  with  the  very 
different  demand  that  every  act  which  one  could  ever 
suspect  to  be  wrong  is  ipso  facto  to  be  regarded  as  forbid¬ 
den.  2  The  effects  of  this  confusion  may  often  be  extremely 
grave  ;  yet  it  is  only  the  student  of  Moral  Theology,  or  of 
some  form  of  systematic  Ethics,  who  can  be  sure  of  not 
falling  into  this  mistake  unawares. 

The  subject  of  the  Law  of  Marriage  is  even  more  urgent 
still.  Though  it  is  only  in  quite  a  few  cases  out  of  many 
hundreds  that  any  real  moral  doubt  can  arise  as  to  whether 
a  given  marriage  is  lawful  and  binding  or  not,  these  few 
cases  give  infinite  trouble  to  those  who  would  state  the 
Christian  Law  of  Marriage  in  concise  form.  The  Roman 
Theology  of  Marriage  raises  an  immense  number  of  diffi¬ 
cult  questions  too  important  to  be  left  unanswered.  If 
we  do  not  accept — as  for  the  most  part  Englishmen  will 
not  accept — the  answers  which  have  satisfied  the  Roman 

1  See  Nineteenth  Century  and  After.  Aug.  1909  ('  Marriage 
Law  in  the  Church  of  England  ’)  and  Church  Quarterly  Review, 
July  1912  (‘  Probabilism  ’). 

2  Cf.  note  to  chap.  xii.  above:  p.  118. 


204  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 

Catholic  theologians,  then  we  seem  to  be  called  on  to  give 
answers  of  our  own.  Thus  would  it  not  be  well  worth 
while  to  go  back  in  this  matter  to  first  principles  ?  For 
Christians,  the  fundamental  principle  of  morality  is  that 
Commandment  upon  which  all  the  law  and  the  prophets 
hang.  Is  there,  then,  a  better  way  of  dealing  with  the 
problems  of  the  Marriage  Law  than  by  applying  this 
commandment  directly  to  the  various  cases  which  arise  ? 
That  this  is  not  the  method  which  theologians  have 
habitually  adopted  it  would  be  singularly  easy  to  show.1 


Again,  a  fully  equipped  theology  requires  a  definite 
‘  theory  of  knowledge  \  2  Liberal  theologians — setting  a 

1  By  taking  St.  Mark  x.  8  and  9  in  conjunction  with  1  Cor. 
vi.  16,  we  might  defend  on  Scriptural  grounds  a  doctrine  quite 
unlike  that  which  is  expressed  in  the  phrases  Consensus  non 
concubitus  facit  nuptias,  Consensus  qui  matrimonium  facit  est 
consensus  in  matrimonium.  Yet  it  is  on  the  latter  principle 
that  the  Church  has  consistently,  and  surely  quite  rightly,  acted. 

2  A  systematic  theory  of  knowledge  must  deal  not  only  with 
the  special  sources  of  religious  knowledge,  but  with  knowledge 
in  general.  How  is  our  knowledge  related  to  the  things  we 
know  ?  It  might  seem  at  first  sight  as  if  we  were  limited  to 
three  possible  answers.  f  Either  thought  is  the  product  of 
things  (the  answer  of  common  Empiricism)  :  or  things  are  the 
creation  of  thought  (the  answer  of  Subjective  Idealism)  :  or 
there  is  a  pre-established  harmony  between  the  two.’ 

Empiricism  and  Subjective  Idealism  have  been  subjected 
to  searching  criticism  ;  and  neither  theory  has  stood  the  test 
well.  Nor  is  the  notion  of  a  pre-established  harmony  more 
satisfactory  than  they. 

Take  the  plainest  and  simplest  case.  When  I  know  that  two 
straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space,  this  piece  of  knowledge 
follows  from  the  very  meaning  of  ‘  straightness  \  If  I  know 
what  straightness  means,  and  if  this  question  about  the  enclosing 
of  space  occurs  to  me,  my  answer  is  certain.  Thus  the  truth 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  FUTURE 


205 


high  value  on  the  thought  of  past  ages,  yet  protesting 
against  the  attitude  of  mind  which  *  learns  nothing  and 
forgets  nothing  ’ — have  sought  refuge  in  vague  phrases 
which  imply  that  what  is  true  for  one  age  may  be  false 
for  another  ;  that  ‘  the  time  has  now  come  ’  for  abandon¬ 
ing  dogmas  which  once  were  true  ;  and  so  forth.  Against 
such  a  conception  the  sound  sense  of  the  plain  man  is  at  all 
times  in  just  revolt.  He  sees,  clearly  enough,  that  though 
our  apprehension  of  truth  may  change  and  develop, 
truth  itself  is  immutable  and  eternal.  Yet  he  does  not 
himself  formulate  any  definite  theory  :  and  therefore  the 
whole  subject  is  left  in  a  state  of  confusion  which  gives 

itself,  and  my  knowledge  of  it,  both  of  them  follow  from  the 
meaning  of  the  terms  involved.  Here,  then,  is  no  merely  external 
relation  mysteriously  ‘  established  5  between  thought  and  things. 
Knowledge  and  truth  are  distinct,  yet  their  agreement  is  no 
accident. 

Incidentally,  we  may  at  the  same  time  perceive  that  it  is  a 
false  theory  which  argues  that  ‘  either  our  knowledge  comes 
short  of  the  truth — and  fails  to  know  things  “  as  they  are 
or  else  thought  and  truth  are  identical.’  I,  the  knowing  subject, 
am  not  the  straight  lines,  nor  am  I  their  non-enclosure  of  a 
space.  The  axiom  indeed  is  prior  to  my  knowledge  of  it.  Yet 
when  I  come  to  know  it,  my  knowledge  of  it  is  complete.  In 
such  a  case  I  know  the  truth  ‘as  it  is  ’. 

Confusion,  in  fact,  seems  to  have  been  almost  wantonly  caused 
by  thinkers  who  have  ignored  the  plain  meaning  of  the  verb  to 
‘  know  ’.  It  is,  surely,  no  more  possible  to  redefine  the  verb 
to  ‘  know  ’  than  to  redefine  the  verb  to  ‘  be  ’.  If  this  is  true, 
we  may  partly  lay  down  the  limits  within  which  revolutionary 
thought  is  possible  in  philosophy.  While  a  new  ‘  cosmology  ’ 
and  a  new  ‘  psychology  ’  may  conceivably  arise,  which  shall 
be  not  merely  novel  but  revolutionary,  it  seems  impossible  that 
there  should  be  a  revolutionary  ‘  ontology  ’  [doctrine  of  the 
nature  of  being,  as  such]  or  a  revolutionary  ‘  epistemology  ’  [theory 
of  knowledge].  If,  however,  this  principle  were  accepted,  it 
would  furnish  us  with  a  severe  standard  by  which  to  judge  several 
important  works  of  recent  times. 


206  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


to  the  more  conservative  schools  of  theological  thought  an 
advantage  to  which  they  are  not  justly  entitled. 


Again,  we  need  a  systematic  treatment  of  the  Freedom 
of  the  Will.  In  the  common  theology  of  the  pulpit  a 
slavish  doctrine  of  habit  stands  side  by  side  with  an 
anarchic  doctrine  of  liberty.  ‘  Sow  an  act  ’ — it  is  said — 
‘  reap  a  habit  :  sow  a  habit,  reap  a  character  :  sow  a 
character,  reap  a  destiny.’  The  power  of  habit  is  unques¬ 
tionably  great  :  yet  the  man,  to  wdiom  this  sentence  seems 
to  sum  up  the  whole  truth  of  the  matter,  has  not  yet 
learned  the  secret  of  Christian  freedom. 


In  dealing  with  all  these  questions — as  has  been  already 
said  with  regard  to  one  of  them — we  might  well  take 
example  by  the  Church  of  Rome.  If  members  of  the 
Church  of  England,  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and  of  the 
various  Free  Churches  in  the  two  countries — men  whose 
hearts  God  had  touched — 1  would  work  together  in  con¬ 
scious  co-operation, would  formulate  definite  problems  and 
(as  the  Roman  theologians  do)  would  systematically 
criticize  one  another’s  solutions,2  we  might  arrive  at 
considerable  results  even  within  the  lifetime  of  the  present 
generation.3 

1  Only  by  chance  can  work  entered  upon  in  such  a  spirit 
promote  the  special  aims  of  any  school  or  party.  Those,  there¬ 
fore,  who  undertake  it  must  expect  no  reward  in  the  form  either 
of  popularity  or  preferment. 

2  On  the  side  of  Moral  Theology  we  could  not  do  better  than 
to  take  as  a  starting  point  Dr.  Rashdall’s  truly  great  book  The 
Theory  of  Good  and  Evil. 

3  Is  it  not  the  Scribe ,  made  a  disciple  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 


THE  TASK  OF  THE  FUTURE 


20  7 


The  great  difficulty  is  that — except  in  relation  to 
questions  of  history — our  theology  appears  to  have  lost 
its  enthusiasm  for  knowledge.  That  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
— though  he  had  practical  interests  to  serve — was  an 
enthusiast  for  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  no  one  who 
reads  him  could  long  doubt.  When  we  turn  from  him  to 
our  own  Tractarians,  it  is  not  easy  to  feel  that  they  were 
in  this  respect  his  successors.  For  this  we  need  not  blame 
them.  They  were  called  to  a  special  task.  In  reviving 
in  the  Anglican  Ministry  a  sense  of  its  divine  commission 
they  did  a  priceless  service  to  their  country.  Yet  did 
not  their  theology  become,  as  a  result,  too  much  a  theology 
ad  hoc  ?  And  have  we  not  all  suffered  ever  since  from 
this  circumscription  of  mental  horizon  ? 1  God,  Man, 
and  the  Universe, — rather  than  the  special  claims  of  the 
Church  of  England, — are,  after  all,  the  central  subjects 
of  theological  inquiry  :  and  the  unification  of  human 
knowledge  is  at  least  the  Ideal,  however  far  off  be  its 
accomplishment,  for  those  whose  study  is  to  deserve  the 
title  of  the  ‘  Queen  of  the  Sciences  \ 

who  is  set  before  us  as  the  object  of  the  theologian’s  imitation  ? 
Matt.  xiii.  52. 

1  How  far  this  criticism  is  applicable  to  the  authors  of  Founda¬ 
tions,  is  a  question  which  cannot  be  adequately  discussed  in  a 
footnote. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 


EFORE,  however,  we  can  enter  on  any  such  con- 


E'  structive  work  as  is  here  indicated,  there  are 
one  or  two  preliminary  questions  to  which  we  must  give 
definite  answers. 

What — first  of  all — is  to  be  our  attitude  towards  the 
problem  of  Sin  ?  If  Liberal  Theology  has  weakened 
its  own  powers  by  a  vague  theory  of  knowledge  ; 1  if  it  has 
weakened  them  still  more  by  its  association  with  coldness 
in  devotion  ;  it  has  weakened  them  most  of  all,  and  most 
deservedly,  by  inadequate  language  on  the  subject  of 
Sin.  In  Liberalism,  even  at  its  worst,  there  is  a  certain 
open-mindedness,  a  certain  absence  of  hardness,  from 
which  all  the  orthodox  schools  have  something  to  learn. 
Yet  Liberalism  throws  away  every  chance  it  has  of  com¬ 
peting  with  these  other  schools  on  equal  terms,  whenever 
it  evinces  even  the  smallest  Pelagian  tendency  either  in 
doctrine  or  in  sentiment.  For  the  sentimentality  which 
denies  that  sin  is  exceeding  sinful,2  which  affects  to 
regard  evil  as  ‘  imperfect  good  man  feels  at  heart  a  pro¬ 
found  contempt.  That  the  existence  of  evil  is  in  the  end 
good,  is  a  necessary  corollary  of  Theism.3  Yet,  in  the 

1  Cf.  chap,  xviii.  1  Rom.  vii.  13. 

3  Rom.  viii.  28  ;  Eph.  i.  10  ;  v.  20  ;  1  Tim.  iv.  4,  etc.,  etc. 


208 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 


209 


very  act  of  thanking  God1  that  He  has  ‘  created  evil ’  8 
in  order  that  it  might  be  overcome  by  the  power  of  His 
Spirit, — in  the  very  act  of  thanking  Him  that  He  has 
*  shut  up  all  unto  disobedience  ’ 3  that  all  might  gain  the 
priceless  blessings  of  contrition  and  repentance — we  must 
first  recognize  evil  for  what  it  is,  or  the  victory  over  evil 
will  not  be  appraised  at  its  true  value.  It  may  be  true 
sometimes  that  men  are  ‘  more  sinned  against  than  sin¬ 
ning  *,  that  if  ‘  all  is  understood,  all  will  be  pardoned  \ 
But,  in  reference  to  conduct  as  a  whole,  man  knows  that 
the  truth  is  otherwise  ;  that  to  confess  that  we  have 
sinned  *  by  our  fault,  our  own  fault,  our  own  most 
grievous  fault  *,  is  the  only  statement  of  the  matter  which 
is  true  to  the  facts.  Whatever  God’s  responsibility  for 
sin  may  be,  there  is  at  least  no  doubt  about  our  own.4 
Nor — if  we  do  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  evidence — is  there 
any  doubt  about  the  deep-seated  corruption  of  our  nature. 
A  theology  therefore  which  is  not  merely  to  gain  the  ear 
of  the  modern  world,  but  to  keep  it,  must  be  as  sternly 
Anti-Pelagian  as  that  of  Augustine  himself. 

In  direct  connexion  with  the  doctrine  of  Sin  stands  the 
doctrine  of  Repentance.  Is  Repentance  the  sole  condi¬ 
tion  of  Pardon  ?  Upon  our  answer  to  this  question 
depends  the  character  of  the  Gospel  which  we  preach  ; 
and  therefore  there  is  no  question  to  which  a  clear  answer 
is  more  imperatively  demanded. 

The  affirmative  answer  is  stated  with  admirable  plain- 

1  Rom.  xi.  33.  a  Isa.  xlv.  7.  3  Rom.  xi.  32. 

4  The  moral  responsibility  of  man  is  not  to  be  identified  with 
the  doctrine  that  such  human  acts  as  are  free  are  therefore  ‘  con¬ 
tingent  ’.  The  former  is  established  by  the  clear  witness  of  moral 
consciousness  :  the  latter  must  be  admitted,  even  by  its  defenders, 
to  be  a  highly  questionable  philosophic  theory. 

P 


2io  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


ness  by  Dr.  Moberly.1  ‘  Whether  God  forgives  a  man 
or  not/  he  says,  ‘  depends  wholly  and  only  upon  whether 
the  man  is  or  is  not  forgivable.  He  who  can  be  forgiven 
by  Love  and  Truth,  is  forgiven  by  Love  and  Truth, 
instantly,  absolutely,  without  failure  or  doubt.  In  God, 
forgiveness  upon  the  necessary  conditions  so  acts  as  if  it 
were  self-acting — penitence,  so  far  as  it  is  penitence, 
never  by  any  possibility  failing  of  pardon/ 

Though  the  doctrine  which  these  words  convey  is 
seldom  denied  expressly,  it  is  often  denied  by  implication, 
as,  for  example,  when  the  command  of  Ananias  to  the 
newly-converted  Saul2 — '  Arise  and  wash  away  thy  sin  ’ — 
is  taken  to  imply  that  Saul  received  forgiveness,  not  upon 
his  repentance  but  upon  his  subsequent  baptism.  The 
motive  of  this  literal  exposition  is  obvious.  Yet  even 
for  its  special  purpose  it  seems  entirely  needless.  The 
admission  that  outward  ordinances  play  a  part — that  for 
mankind  at  large  they  play  an  indispensable  part — in  the 
ministry  of  reconciliation,  seems  quite  compatible  with 
the  belief  that  true  penitence  leads  unfailingly  to  pardon. 
If,  however,  the  two  views  are  to  be  put  into  direct 
opposition — if  we  have  to  choose  between  the  belief  that 
the  new  convert  was  immediately  forgiven  on  repentance, 
and  the  contrary  belief  that  pardon  was  deferred  till  all 
due  formalities  had  been  completed — it  seems  hardly 
conceivable  that  we  can  long  remain  in  doubt  between 
them.  That  Pardon  follows  inseparably  upon  repentance 
is  surely  the  very  essence  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  And 
need  we  hesitate  to  say  that  here  we  have  a  truth  which 

1  Atonement  and  Personality,  pp.  57,  60.  The  quotation  5 
not  quite  continuous. 

3  Acts  xxii.  16.  See  e.g.  Dr.  Mason’s  Faith  of  the  Gospel,  p. 
289  (edition  of  1892)  :  Dr.  Darwell  Stone’s  Holy  Baptism,  p.  35. 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 


211 


stands  at  a  higher  level  than  any  other  doctrine  of  our 
religion,  in  respect  both  of  its  certainty  and  of  its  impor¬ 
tance  ? 

Less  important  to  religion  than  the  doctrines  of  Sin 
and  Pardon,  but  hardly  less  important  to  theology,  is 
the  question  of  the  source  or  sources  of  our  religious 
knowledge. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  Antithesis  between 
‘  Reason  ’  and  ‘  Revelation  \  It  will  be  admitted  that  on 
all  non-religious  subjects  our  knowledge  is  derived  from 
Reason  applied  to  the  subject-matter  which  is  given  us  in 
Experience.  Are  we  to  hold  that  for  religious  purposes 
this  method  is  insufficient,  and  that  here  our  knowledge 
is  derived  partly  from  Reason,  but  partly  also  from  Reve¬ 
lation  regarded  as  a  '  non-rational  ’  or  '  extra-rational ' 
principle  ?  Or  may  we  be  satisfied  to  build  up  our 
religious  creed  by  Reason  and  Experience  alone  ? 

The  word  f  Rationalism  ’  has  bad  associations.  It  is 
associated  with  a  spirit  devoid  both  of  delicacy  and  of 
reverence  :  with  a  shallow  criticism  which  rejects  as 
false  everything  that  wears  even  the  most  superficial 
appearance  of  mystery  or  contradiction. 

Yet  this  is  far  from  being  the  only  sense  in  which  the 
term  is  used.  ‘  Rationalism  ’ — it  has  been  said — 1  'may 
be  defined  as  the  mental  attitude  which  unreservedly 
accepts  the  supremacy  of  reason,  and  aims  at  establishing 
a  system  of  philosophy  and  ethics  verifiable  by  experi¬ 
ence  and  independent  of  all  arbitrary  assumptions  or 
authority/ 

Is  there  a  single  word  in  this  statement  towards  which 
theology  should  adopt  a  hostile  attitude  ?  The  suprem- 

1  Advertisement  of  the  ‘  Rationalist  Press  Association,’  p.  ii. 

pH; 


2i2  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


acy  of  Reason  is  no  more  inconsistent  with  the  suprem¬ 
acy  of  Jesus,1  than  the  supremacy  of  Duty  is  inconsis¬ 
tent  with  the  supremacy  of  God.  If  then  we  find  our¬ 
selves  disposed  to  resist  such  ‘  rationalism  *  as  this — -if 
we  desire  to  maintain  in  any  form  the  old  antithesis 
between  *  Reason  '  and  ‘  Revelation  1 2 — we  ought  at 
least  to  subject  ourselves  to  a  stringent  self-examination. 
Do  we  desire  to  withdraw  certain  doctrinal  statements 
from  free  criticism  ?;  Do  we  allege  that  we  possess 
knowledge  which  is  not  the  product  of  thought  applied 
to  the  matter  given  in  experience  ?  If  not,  what  exactly 
is  our  meaning  ?  Above  all,  what  is  our  motive  ? 

For  whatever  may  be  the  motive  for  this  way  of  speak¬ 
ing,  there  can  surely  be  little  doubt  about  its  effects. 
‘  Our  most  holy  religion  ’ — says  Hume  with  characteristic 
irony — 'is  founded  on  Faith  not  on  Reason/  He  there¬ 
fore  warns  those  who  would  defend  the  Christian  religion 
‘  by  the  principles  of  human  reason  *  that  ‘  it  is  a  sure 
method  of  exposing  it,  to  put  it  to  such  a  trial  as  it  is  by 
no  means  fitted  to  endure/  If  we  declare  that  our 
religious  knowledge  arises  from  ‘  non-rational  ’  or  ‘  extra- 
rational  ’  sources,  what  is  this  but  to  justify  Hume’s 
estimate  of  the  reasonableness  of  our  Faith  by  the  admis¬ 
sion  of  its  defenders  ? 

Ought  not  theology  then  seriously  to  reconsider  its 
whole  attitude  towards  Reason  ?  Do  we  not  stand  at 
the  parting  of  the  ways  when  we  ask  whether  our  science 
requires  drastic  revision,  and  this  a  revision  on  what 
may  be  called — in  the  best  sense  of  the  words — rational¬ 
istic  methods  ? 

1  See  chaps,  x.,  xiii. 

*  For  a  reverent  and  temperately- worded  criticism  of  this 
antithesis  see  Mr.  Webb’s  Problems  in  the  relations  of  God  and 
Man. 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 


213 


The  question  is  sometimes  put  to  those  who,  even  in 
the  most  moderate  spirit,  demand  a  *  reconstruction  '  of 
the  theological  fabric — What  has  happened  to  make  such 
reconstruction  necessary  ? 

The  question  may  be  variously  answered.  *  Kant 
we  might  say — ‘  has  happened.  Though  his  work  is  a 
century  old,  theology  has  not  yet  fully  taken  its  bearings 
in  regard  to  it/  Or  we  might  mention  other  great  names, 
— Hegel,  Darwin,  even  Copernicus — with  a  similar 
comment. 

But  our  answer  might  well  take  a  wider  range.  That 
great  and  growing  interest  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which  is 
one  product  of  the  Oxford  Movement,  has  led  to  a  general 
development  of  the  historical  sense.  We  have  learned 
that  the  Catholicism  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  not  precisely 
similar  in  spirit  to  the  Catholicism  either  of  the  Counter- 
Reformation  or  of  the  Age  of  Councils.  We  have  dis¬ 
covered  how  all  these  forms  of  our  religion  differ  both 
from  Protestantism  and  from  Primitive  Christianity.  The 
reverent  study  of  the  past  has  led  us  to  perceive  that  each 
one  of  the  great  Christian  schools  has  had  something  of 
value  to  contribute  to  the  common  stock  of  our  religious 
knowledge.  Yet  the  same  reverent  study Mias  instilled 
a  doubt  whether  the  theology  of  any  of  these  periods  is 
able  to  lead  us  to  a  standpoint  from  which  we  can  ade¬ 
quately  judge  the  religion  and  theology  of  the  others. 
In  this  one  fact  alone,  we  have  a  clear  and  sufficient  reason 
for  taking  our  theological  bearings  afresh. 

Such  then  is  the  task  to  which  the  circumstances  of 
our  time  seem  to  be  calling  us.  Are  we  to  accept  it  or  to 
decline  it  ? 

It  has  been  well  said  that  a  man  may  do  much  good  in 


214  RELIGION  IN  AN  AGE  OF  DOUBT 


the  world  if  he  does  not  care  who  gets  the  credit  of  it. 
The  same  perhaps  is  true  of  a  whole  Church  or  generation. 
About  the  credit  that  is  to  be  gained  we  need  indeed 
hardly  concern  ourselves.  We  may  contentedly  enter 
upon  labours  which,  for  all  we  know  to  the  contrary,  may 
be  absorbed  entirely  in  the  better  work  of  those  who  come 
after.  Yet  though  it  is  possible  on  the  one  hand  that 
the  work  of  this  century  may  be  mostly  forgotten,  it  is 
also  not  impossible  on  the  other  that  it  may  be  as  per¬ 
manent  as  that  of  the  Age  of  Councils  itself.  We  do  not 
know  what  events  may  occur  in  the  future  to  call  men 
away  to  other  interests  and  other  problems  than  ours  : 
and  it  may  be  that,  so  far  as  our  particular  problems  are 
concerned,  it  is  destined  that  in  our  light  men  shall  see 
light  for  many  centuries  to  come. 

Let  us  then  work  while  it  is  called  To-day.  We  stand 
in  the  line  of  a  great  succession.  We  have  behind  us — 
since  the  time  of  our  Saviour  and  His  Apostles — the 
Fathers,  the  Schoolmen,  the  Reformers.  xAQ  these  were 
bold  and  adventurous  thinkers.  It  is  right  that  we  too 
should  have  the  courage  to  frame  large  designs,  that  we 
should  approach  our  task  with  industry  and  zeal  yet 
without  haste  and  without  anxiety — not  timidly  eager 
to  avoid  mistakes,  not  anxious  how  or  what  we  shall 
speak,  since  the  day  will  try  our  work  of  wiiat  sort  it  is, 
and  since  it  is  not  w-e  that  speak  but  the  Spirit  of  our 
Father  wilich  speaks  in  us, — but  rather  daring,  in  reliance 
on  that  Spirit  and  in  spite  of  the  various  criticisms  with 
wThich  we  shall  be  assailed,  to  bring  out  of  our  treasures 
things  new  and  old. 


INDEX 


Absorption,  barbaric  doctrine 
of,  192 

Accident,  Chap.  XV,  esp.  157, 
147  note. 

Acid,  formic,  7 
Adam  de  la  Hale,  173 
Adoption,  doctrine  of,  134 
Aeschylus,  75 
Agnosticism,  127 
Alexander  the  Great,  169 
Allen,  Mr.  Grant,  149  note 
Ambrose,  St.,  71 
Anderson,  Dr.,  65 
Angelico,  Fra,  169,  171 
Anselm,  St.,  133 
Antinomianism,  55,  55  note, 
60  note,  104,  106  note. 
Apocalyptic  Eschatology,  67, 
67  note,  68,  83,  84 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  22,  71, 
117,  162,  163,  165,  166, 
167,  168,  170,  175,  207, 
xii 

Arianism,  shallowness  of,  181 
Aristotle,  139,  147  note,  172 
Arnold,  Matthew,  60,  67,  no, 
188 

Asceticism,  Chap.  VII 
Atonement,  198,  cf.  52,  53 
Augustine,  St.,  41,  90,  209 


Baptismal  formula,  184  note 
Barbarism,  Oriental,  166 
cf.  Pessimism,  Absorption 
Berkeley,  166 
Bernard,  St.,  171 
Bosanquet,  Dr.,  19,  164 
Bourget,  8 

Bradley,  Mr.  F.  H.,  144,  162, 
167,  175 

Browning,  Robert,  8,  ix 
Buddhism,  44,  etc.,  56 
Bunyan,  3,  40,  107,  108 

Calderon,  41 

Campbell,  Dr.  Macleod,  52, 
53 

Caribbees,  the,  25 
Carlyle,  48 
Carmen,  149,  152 
Catholicism,  Roman  and  Angli¬ 
can, 

services  to  religion  of,  58, 
75,  129,  165,  201,  202, 
207,  213,  xi 

and  see  ‘  Moral  Theology/ 
‘  Quietism,’  *  Aquinas  ’ 
Charon,  155 
Christ 

divinity  of,  not  inseparable 
from  ‘  pre-existence,’  19, 
21,  138,  139,  184 


Backsliding,  106,  184 


215 


2l6 


INDEX 


Christ 

divinity  of,  learned  through 
submission  to  His  will, 
18,  19,  109,  120-124, 

137-140,  181-182,  186, 
cf.  66,  82,179,  xii,  xiii 
pre-existence  of,  taught  by 
St.  Paul,  195 
relative  to  purely  tem¬ 
poral  conception  of 
God,  191  note,  192,  cf. 
185,  186 

Messianic  claims  of,  83,  84 
uniqueness  of,  65,  97,  98, 
193.  135 

*  rationalistic  *  elements  in 
teaching  of,  80,  93  note , 
201  note 

acceptance  of,  not  dependent 
on  theology,  19,  105, 
109,  1 19,  Chap.  XIV 
no  higher  God  conceivable 
than,  19,  140 

His  relation  to  Christianity, 
64-66,  82,  100-102,  103 
to  Protesta r  asm,  etc.,  98 
no  world  containing  Him 
*  Godless,’  19 
Christianity 

contrasted  with  other  syst- 
tems,  Chaps.  VII  and 
VIII 

has  worked  the  supreme 
spiritual  revolution,  59 
its  distinctive  character,  55, 
56,  56  note,  57-60,  63 
Christian  experience 

independent  of  Christian 
doctrine,  18,  109-112, 
118-120,  Chap.  XIII 
basis  of  theology,  19,  chap, 
xiv,  esp.  134,  135 


Christian  morality,  distinctive 
and  revolutionary,  70, 
88  note 

Christology,  a  high 

needs  reconciliation  with 
Monotheism,  179,  181 
modern  world  has  sufficient 
data  for,  18,  100-102, 
137-140,  194 
Chrysostom,  St.,  73,  157 
Command,  God’s,  gives  stronger 
assurance  than  His  pro¬ 
mise,  106  note 
Contentio  Veritatis,  200,  xiii 
Conversion,  doctrine  of,  106, 
107,  124 

Conviction  of  sin 

Christianity  unintelligible 
apart  from,  2,  8,  132,  134 
Conybeare,  Mr.  F.  C.,  78,  89, 
100 

Copernicus,  213 

Coquelin,  153 

Councils,  Age  of,  213,  214 

Counter-Reformation,  the,  213 

Cuckoo,  the,  153 

Cyril,  St.,  165 

Darius,  24,  25  : 

Darwin,  142,  213 
Davids,  T.  W.,  Rhys,  45 
Descartes,  157 

Design,  Argument  from,  de¬ 
serves  restatement, 
Chap.  XV 

Divinity,  of  Holy  Ghost,  180, 
cf.  133,  15  note 
of  our  Lord,  180,  see  ‘  Christ  ’ 
of  Creator,  180,  cf.  20,  182 

Eliot,  George,  48,  186 

Empiricism,  144,  204 


INDEX 


Epictetus,  48,  76 
Epistemology,  205  note 
Eschatology,  see  Apocalyptic 
Evangelicalism,  xi,  Chaps.  XI 
and  XII 

Evil,  problem  of,  95,  156,  157, 
162,  180,  208,  209 
Evolution,  142,  149-153,  1 5i 
note 

Faith,  as  an  act  of  vrll,  52-61 
contrasted  with  works  as 
‘  will  ’  with  *  deed,’  62 
note 

Fathers,  214,  see  Greek  Fathers 
Feuerbach,  186 
Figgis,  Mr.,  104,  114,  117 
Fioretti,  87,  98 
Fitzgerald,  Mr.  P.,  111 
Foundations,  93,  197,  207,  xiii 
Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,  86,  87,  98, 
99,  ior 

Frazer,  Dr.  J.  G.,  8,  44,  193 
Free  Will,  117,  190,  206,  209 
note 

Gardner,  Prof.  Percy,  74 
Glory,  hope  of,  xiii,  see 
Heaven 

God,  contact  with,  135-13 7 
defined  as  the  *  Supreme 
Object  of  Reverence,’ 
129,  cf.  135 
as  Cause,  190 
as  all-inclusive,  190-19 1 
Golden  Bough,  see  Frazer 
Golden  legend,  58-172 
Grace,  doctrine  of,  its  essence, 
132 

not  inseparable  from  per¬ 
sonality  of  God,  13 1 


217 

Greek  Fathers,  the,  20,  181, 

185,  *97 

Green,  T.  H.,  4,  176 

Habituation,  hereditary,  see 
Evolution 

Haeckel,  3,  4,  5,  7 
Haldane,  Lord,  113,  164 
Harmony  of  colours,  145-152 
Harnack,  Dr.,  48,  63,  78,  79, 
81,  200 

Harrison,  Miss  Jane,  8 
Heaven,  Chap.  XVI 
Hegel,  77,  159,  160,  164,  193, 
213,  xii 
Herodotus,  25 

High  Churchmen,  165,  207, 
213,  see  Catholicism 
Hildebrand,  147  note 
Hume,  181,  122,  212 
Huxley,  66,  122 

Idealism,  10,  175,  176,  177,  186, 
192,  194,  204,  205 
Illingworth,  Dr.,  194-6 
Incarnation,  Chap.  XVII 
Inge,  Dr.  Ralph,  10 
Innocence,  attainable,  113,  120, 
136 

Innocent  XI,  114 

James,  Prof.,  126 
Johnson,  Dr.,  6 
Jupiter,  138 

Justification  and  Reconciliation 
(Translation  T.  &  T. 
Clark),  123,  etc. 

Kant,  2,  19,  26,  27,  28,  29,  30, 
3*.  32,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37, 
3s,  39,  4°,  42,  43,  55,  61, 
62,  80,  90,  92,  108,  109, 
no,  in,  xi,  3$ii 


218 


INDEX 


Keble,  168 

Kenosis,  doctrine  of,  188 
its  difficulties,  189 
Keswick  School,  the,  114,  etc. 

Lamb,  97 

Law,  the  moral,  2,  Chaps.  IV, 
V,  VI,  50-51 
Law,  Wm.,  117 
Laws  of  Nature,  &c.,  112,  113, 
120,  121,  Chap.  XV,  158, 
161 

Legend  of  the  Three  Com¬ 
panions,  98 

Liberalism  (theological) 
merits  and  defects  of,  208 
Locke,  25 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  21,  40 
Loisy,  M.  Alfred,  133,  183 
Lotze,  3,  199 
Louis,  St.,  135 
Luther,  41,  58,  92 
Lux  Mundi,.  xiii 
Lyall,  Sir  Alfred,  41 
Lyra  Apostolica,  9 

Mark,  Gospel  according  to  St. 

Pauline  teaching  in,  70-73 
Marriage  law,  202-204 
Mason,  Dr.,  210 
Materialism,  3-8,  156,  160 
Merit,  see  Works 
Metaphysic,  its  value,  22,  175 
personal  religion  not  depen¬ 
dent  on,  130 

Miracles,  credibility  of,  199 
evidence  for,  200-201 
religious  value  of,  14,  139 
Christian  faith  not  dependent 
on,  15,  15  note  130 
Mirror  of  Perfection  f  98 
Moberly,  52,  53,  210 


Mohler,  58 

Molinos,  Michael  de,  114 
Moody,  Mr.  D.  L.,  107,  no 
Moral  theology,  the  Roman, 
10,  1 18,  202-204 
Mosheim,  37-38 
Mozart,  168 

Mysticism,  10,  no,  129,  cf.  112 

Natural  Selection,  see  Evolu¬ 
tion 

Nestorianism,  189 
New  Pilgrim’s  Progress,  187 
Newman,  22,  90,  112 
Newton,  148 

theology  has  not  yet  found 
its,  21 

Nietzsche,  88,  144 

Omar  Khayyam,  6,  134 
Optimism,  20,  48,  73,  155-158, 
170-178,  185 

Oxford 

Bishop  of,  188-189,  x  (i.e., 
p.  x  of  preface) 
influence  of  Ritschl  at,  xiii 

Paley,  12,  19,  80 
Pantheism,  190 
Pardon,  conditions  of,  209-211 
Paul,  St.,  Chaps.  VII-X,  etc. 
Pearson,  Professor  K.,  8 
Pessimism,  170,  cf.  166,  also  48, 

75 

Peter  the  Hermit,  30 
Pitt,  deathbed  of,  no 
Plato,  42,  93,  158-161,  190,  1 91 
Pragmatism,  125,  126,  128 
Prichard,  Mr.  H.  A.,  177 
Probabilism,  203 
Punishment,  doctrine  of  eter¬ 
nal,  132-134 


INDEX 


219 


Quietism,  no,  114  note,  118 

Rashdall,  Dr.,  154,  155,  178, 
200,  206 

Rationalism,  various  defini¬ 
tions  of,  21 1,  cf.  80,  124, 
141,  see  also  39 
Rationalist  Press  Association, 
the,  21 1 

'  Rationality  of  the  world/ 
senses  of,  154,  155,  178 
Reformers,  the,  214 
Renan,  76,  97 
Rigorism,  118,  203 
Ritschl,  17,  18,  19,  58,  121, 
123-140,  141,  163,  178, 
179,  184,  185,  1 88 
not  a  Pragmatist,  125-128 
not  a  Mystic,  128 
Ritschhanism,  its  special 
achievement,  130,  cf. 
138,  xii 

its  hmitations,  141,  184 
Russell,  Mr.  Bertrand,  177 

Sabellianism,  shallowness  of, 
181 

Sacraments,  201,  cf.  71  note 
Salvation,  Christian  concep¬ 
tion  of,  2,  58 
Sanday,  Dr.,  195 
Sankey,  104-106 
Schiller,  30 
Schoolmen,  the,  214 
Schopenhauer,  41,  170 
Schweitzer,  Dr.,  67,  99 
Sciences  , Queen  of  the,  22,  23, 
207 

Self,  the  '  timeless/  176,  177 


Semple,  33-35 
Shaftesbury,  Lord,  37 
Shakespeare,  38,  53,  97,  168 
Shelley,  58,  186 
Socrates,  86,  95,  98,  99 
Spinoza,  190,  194 
Stoicism,  45,  95 
Stone,  Mr.  Darwell,  210 
Streeter,  Mr.  B.  H.,  93,  197, 
see  Foundations 

Tanquerey,  10,  45 
Teleology,  148,  156 
Theology,  Church  cannot  dis¬ 
pense  with,  22,  xiii 
a  ‘  free/  179,  182 
Toreador  Song,  the,  149,  15 1 
Torrey,  Dr.,  105,  107 
Tououpinamboes,  the,  25 
Travellers'  Guide,  the,  105,  106 
Trinity,  doctrine  of  the,  20, 
Chap.  XVII 
Troubadours,  the,  173 

Value  -  judgments,  125  -  127, 
131-134,  155,  157 
*  Vital  force/  7 

Wace,  Dr.,  195 
Webb,  Mr.  Clement,  187,  212 
Williams,  Dr.  Rowland,  142 
Woodpecker,  the  green,  153 
note 

Wordsworth,  8 

Works,  doctrine  of  good,  44, 
45  note,  49-51,  75,  105, 
122  note,  201,  202 
Wrath  of  God,  132,  134 


Printed  jor  Robert  Scott,  Publither,  Paternoster  Row,  London,  by  Butler  &  Tanner,  Fro  me, 


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